


Defiance

by NovemberMurray



Series: A Good Turn [1]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, But Mostly Keeps to Canon, But the Lovers part comes later, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Found Family, Good Parent Din Djarin, M/M, Pining, Slow Burn, mentions of torture, no beta we die like women
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-12 17:47:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 39,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29139495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NovemberMurray/pseuds/NovemberMurray
Summary: TK-113, Corin, was stationed on Navarro guarding the Client when a nameless Mandalorian bounty hunter takes on a very important job and returns with a bounty worth more than credits or beskar steel. Corin makes a moral decision to disobey orders, a decision that sends his life spiraling out of control. It becomes harder and harder to tell the good luck from the bad, but one thing becomes clear: he will protect the child and the Mandalorian with everything he has.A retelling of the Mandalorian Season 1 with the addition of Corin the Stormtrooper (LadyIrina's OC). Not part of LadyIrina's AU.
Relationships: Corin the Stormtrooper (Rescue and Regret) & Din Djarin & Grogu | Baby Yoda, Corin the Stormtrooper (Rescue and Regret)/Din Djarin
Series: A Good Turn [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2138601
Comments: 47
Kudos: 76





	1. The Virtue

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Rescue and Regret](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21648874) by [LadyIrina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyIrina/pseuds/LadyIrina). 



> I read LadyIrina's AU after watching Season 2 and I fell in love with Corin, sweet moron that he is. If you haven't read her series go read it! There's enough angst there to slit your wrists and enough fluff to drown you. Corin is her character and my story is just meta fanfiction of her fanfiction.
> 
> I wrote the outline for this fic in a fervor over two days after my feelings about Corin, my angst about the Season 2 ending, and all my headcanons boiled over in my brain. I had to write it to get some peace in my own mind. Also it's keeping me sane in lock down.
> 
> I put Slow Burn in the tags but I don't know what counts as Slow Burn or not. Part 1 is about 40k words and goes through the end of Season 1. Part 2 is a short interlude and Part 3 is slated to be quite a bit longer and go through the end of Season 2.
> 
> Be prepared for Corin's name not to be mentioned till chapter 3 and Din's name and Grogu's name won't be commonly used till... like somewhere in part 3 for... reasons.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prologue: In which Corin contemplates the new bounty hunter.
> 
> Chapter 1: In which two lives are spared and many stormtroopers die.

Prologue: The Mandalorian

* * *

_So that’s a Mandalorian,_ Stormtrooper Captain TK-113 thought to himself, watching the figure enter the compound on the grainy security footage. 

The man he observed was surprisingly average looking. Under the enhanced metal plating and reinforced textile armor he was humanoid in shape, four limbs and no obvious other appendages hiding under the cloak or helmet. He was perhaps a few inches taller than average human height, neither bulky nor slim in build but lithe. The rusted red color of the armor blended with the muted brown and black tones of his clothing. If it weren’t for the T shaped visor and distinctive helmet, he might have been any two-bit bounty hunter.

On the screen the Mandalorian moved into the conference chamber. If he was surprised to be confronted with four Stormtroopers and a former Governor of the Galactic Empire, he didn’t show it. Steady as a drifting iceberg he entered the room. The Governor stood up to greet him. TK-113 didn’t hear what was said. The security system of the compound was several generations out of date and faulty at best. Half the rooms didn’t have sound sensors and the other half didn’t work most days. A flicker of movement in the corner of the screen drew TK-113’s eyes to the opening door before there was a flurry of blurred action. When the picture cleared the four troopers in the room had their weapons drawn on the Mandalorian, who had his rifle held one handed toward the Stormtrooper sergeant and his blaster on the door where Doctor Persing cowered. 

“All units stand by to secure the Governor,” TK-113 said into his comms, eyes never leaving the screen. The Mandalorian was absolutely steady, his feet planted and his helmet stationary giving no indication where his eyes were actually focused. He looked intimidatingly calm against the greater odds but if TK-113 had learned anything from his years in the Stormtrooper Corps it was how intimidating a helmet could be. 

The Governor stepped forward speaking, his unheard words having the intended effect. TK-113 watched the raised weapons slowly lower.

“Stand down. Remain at your posts.” He gave the orders into his comm and vaguely heard the affirmative responses from the squad leaders. 

He stood at the security desk as the Governor negotiated the job. It was a routine he had seen countless times before, but the payment was a little different this time. Where usually the bounty hunters were given an advance of credits, this one was given a tantalizing taste of the reward to come: Beskar steel. 

The Mandalorian was passive through the negotiations. From the brevity of the meeting TK-113 could tell he spoke little. Even when his weapons were at his sides and he appeared relaxed at the negotiation table, something about the Mandalorian looked coiled and ready to spring. His presence was like a tension hanging in the air that made TK-113’s hair stand on end. 

_Maybe he’ll be the one to do it,_ he thought. _Maybe he’ll be the one to return the Asset._ But a sinking sensation of dread came with the thought. Mandalorians of all Bounty Hunters had a reputation for ruthlessness. The other hunters were pragmatists and would always be trying to squeeze the deal for all it was worth. They had every incentive to bring the Asset in alive. But a Mandalorian was a warrior for life. For them bounty hunting wasn't the means to obtaining a cushy retired life. Bounty Hunting _was_ the life, the only life from what TK-113 understood of them. Turning over a dead Asset would just be another job, another day, another step on an endless bloody path. 

TK-113 watched the grainy security footage until the doors of the compound closed tightly behind the Mandalorian’s heels. He tried to shake off the tension that had gripped him from the first but the dread stayed lodged in his gut.

_Maybe he won’t find the Asset at all. Maybe the strange little being is beyond all of our reach. Maybe it is somewhere no one can hurt it again._ TK-113 let himself hope silently, a private guilty indulgence. _That would be too much good luck to ask for._

* * *

Chapter 1: The Virtue

* * *

TK-113 stood at the Governor’s side when the Mandalorian returned. That knot of dread in his stomach turned into bitter disappointment when the hovering cradle entered the room.

“Yes, yes, yes, yes,” The Governor chanted in his excitement, fingers twitching greedily, as if the accolades and praise he would receive for the Asset’s retrieval were physical things he could hoard. The doctor moved a bit more cautiously, nervous eyes flickering from the Asset to the Mandalorian as he approached. Eventually the draw of the Asset overcame his attention, but unlike the Governor he showed no sign of approval until the scans were completed.

“Yes… Very healthy, yes,” he nodded and his shoulders eased with what seemed to be genuine relief. 

“Your reputation was not unwarranted,” The Governor said, in the hissing tone that might have sounded gushing from another individual. 

TK-113 watched the Mandalorian carefully as the Doctor led the Asset away with his trooper escort. 

“How many fobs did you give out?” The Mandalorian’s helmet moved ever so slightly, even as he spoke to the Governor, his hidden gaze seemed to be following the bounty. TK-113 wasn’t sure what the voice he was expecting should have sounded like, but it wasn’t the soft-spoken tone that came from under the silver helmet. Even tight with the annoyance that was behind the words, it was an unassuming voice.

“The asset was of extreme importance to me,” The Governor explained. Words that TK-113 knew to mean,  _ it was of extreme importance to someone rich and powerful. _

“I had to ensure its delivery.”  _ I had to ensure it was not acquired by another first. _

“But to the winner…” the Governor moved behind his desk for the payment. “...go the spoils.”  _ Take what you came for and swallow your pedestrian pride; that is what you are paid for.  _ TK-113 didn’t know if the Mandalorian heard the unspoken meanings or the subtle insult they gave. His visor still seemed turned toward the hovering cradle.

The heavy thunk of the camtono on the table and the hiss of the opening compartments snapped the bounty hunter’s attention to the Governor and the 20 neatly stacked ingots of precious steel. The Mandalorian stepped forward and picked up two of the bars, weighing them in his hand and running a gloved thumb over the distinctive pattern of the smelting. The door closed behind Doctor Persing, and TK-113 saw the bottom edge of the Mandalorian’s helmet rise, as if he lifted his gaze for one last glimpse of the Asset.

_ Maybe it’s different, even for a Mandalorian,  _ the Stormtrooper Captain thought,  _ to deliver an innocent to an unknown fate rather than another low-life reaping the rewards of poor choices. That would be a small bit of good luck. _

“What are your plans for it?” The bounty hunter asked in his surprisingly soft voice, as if he could hear the trooper beside him questioning his morals. TK-113 had to swallow down a lurch of useless hope. Some small bit of good luck indeed, the Mandalorian cared enough to ask. But it was too little and too late. The deal was done. 

Lost in his thoughts, TK-113 almost missed the small motion of the Governor’s hand. He hit the comm message on his gauntlet covertly and summoned the awaiting reinforcements from the hall. The soldiers filed in with hands already on their weapons.

“How uncharacteristic,” the Governor lectured, “of one of your reputation. You have taken both, commission and payment. Is it not the code of the guild that these events are now forgotten?” 

The Mandalorian weighted the ingots in his hand. TK-113 knew there was only one answer, but it didn’t stop the heaviness in his chest when the bounty hunter put his payment back in the camtono.

“That beskar is enough to make a handsome replacement for your armor. Unfortunately, finding a Mandalorian in these trying times is more difficult than finding the steel.” 

The Mandalorian snapped the camtono closed at the Governor’s sneered insult and hauled his prize off the table without a word. 

Captain TK-113 watched the bounty hunter leave feeling the tension slowly bleeding from his body. 

“A pity,” the Governor hissed, “that such a noble tradition should have degraded to such a tragic state.” He seemed lost in thought for a moment before his hand snapped up, demanding the Captain’s attention. Like it was second nature, TK-113 snapped his heels together. 

“I want your men to be on high alert, Captain.”

“Yes, Sir,” TK-113 assured him. The Governor turned toward the side door and the Stormtroopers fell in behind him. 

“Doctor Persing will extract all the necessary material from the Asset. We will move it to the main facility as soon as reinforcements can be dispatched to secure it. Another loss of time will not be tolerated.”

“Yes, sir,” TK-113 answered promptly.

The Governor spun around quickly, sending the Stormtroopers into a frozen halt on a dime. The old man’s piercing eyes bored through the Captain’s helmet. TK-113 felt sweat breaking on his forehead under the intense glare. 

“I want you and your best man guarding the Asset at all times. Should anything,  _ anything _ , threaten it’s security, you are to eliminate it before it can be stolen again.”

TK-113 had to force his tongue to move in his suddenly dry mouth. He swallowed painfully and wet his lips.

“Captain,” The Governor hissed, “Do you understand.” It was not a question.

“Roger. It will be done, sir.” He heard himself answer but he wasn’t cognizant of doing it. He heard himself calling up his Sergent and demanding the increased vigilance. TK-292 was the best shot in the squad besides himself, so TK-113 took him along to the Doctor’s makeshift laboratory. 

Doctor Persing looked at their helmeted faces with apprehension when they entered, his gaze flickering to the small figure already lying on the padded table before him. Overhead an IT-0 interrogation droid hovered menacingly.

“I-I don’t require assistance at this time,” the Doctor said, clearly trying to infuse his voice with more authority than he had. 

“We are not here to assist you,” TK-113 informed him in a blank tone and took up his post against the wall beside the door. TK-292 crossed to the other side of the room and stood at parade rest. Doctor Persing swallowed and looked between the troopers nervously before he went back to the medical diagnostic panel on the bed. Overhead the droid readied several large empty syringes and waited.

\--

When the first alarm went off TK-113 was in the half asleep standing rest he had long ago perfected. From the outside he appeared a perfect trooper, standing at parade rest, ready to answer at a moment’s notice. Behind his visor his eyelids drooped and his mind wandered in a between space, not awake and not asleep, hardly aware of the passing time. The alarm registered as a red flash in his hud, a quick line of codes and flurry of beeps in his ear: something was wrong with the sentry droid on the front door. TK-113’s heart lurched painfully in his chest.

Standard procedure, the door guards would be making a perimeter of the building. He watched their status updates come in on the same line of scrolling codes. TK-113 felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up again in the tense silence that followed the initial alarm as he waited for what came next. 

He still tensed at the explosion that ripped through the building. Plaster dust rained from the ceiling around the room. The Doctor jumped six inches, spinning around. 

“What was that?” he demanded, looking at TK-113. 

“Attend to the Asset,” TK-113 ordered him. “You have your orders.” TK-113 had heard the orders as clearly as the Doctor and he had watched the doctor delay and dither over carrying them out for hours. The subject, exhausted by the ordeal he had already endured, lay asleep on the table, the only signs of life it’s labored breathing and the steady beeps of the monitor equipment. 

_ Did he come back?  _ TK-113 wondered. His pulse was racing as the muffled sounds of blaster fire reached his helmet. Codes sped across his HUD listing life-sign monitors going dark: TK-459, TK-434, TK-607, TK-905… One after another in rapid succession and not a crackle over the comms of what they were up against. Sergeant TK-194 called out sharp orders over the comms, ordering troopers towards the main chambers, calling the perimeter patrols back. TK-113 knew from the rate their attacker was moving at, they were too spread out. It wasn’t going to be enough.

Across the room TK-292 was coming to the same realization. TK-113 saw the other trooper’s helmet lift minutely as his eyes undoubtedly turned to his Captain. TK-113 knew he should do something in that moment, affirm the Governor’s commands, give a nod, anything. But his body wouldn’t respond. His gaze was drawn against his will to the tiny body on the table, nearly buried in blankets and covered with medical equipment. The little face was drawn and paler green than it should have been, sweat glistened on it’s wrinkled brow and it shuddered with every breath. It was helpless and innocent and it would die here after enduring hours of painful tests and procedures.

_This is all so wrong._ _Bad luck cannot be so cruel, can it?_ He wondered, feeling an unfamiliar pricking in his eyes and tightness of his throat.

TK-292 moved toward the bed, hands flexing and adjusting their grip on the E-11 rifle.

“W-what are you doing?” Dr. Persing asked, looking between the troopers in alarm. “W-what is going--”

Anything else he was going to say was cut off by the door whooshing open to TK-113’s left. He couldn’t see who was in the doorway, but he saw TK-292 duck left. A red laser blot hit the wall behind TK-292, just glancing off his pauldron. TK-292 raised his E-11 toward the medical bed. 

TK-113, in a motion he’d practiced countless thousands of times, raised his blaster and shot without a moment of hesitation. The bolt of plasm from his rifle hit TK-292 directly in the chest from across the bed. He had only a moment to cry out and his arms jerked before he could pull the trigger. TK-292’s dying shot went wide, hitting the far wall. TK-113 heard his own breathing too loud in his helmet, watching the fellow Stormtrooper killed by his own hands crumple to the ground.

“NO! No, no, please,” Dr. Persing screamed, putting himself between the bed and the door. The IT-0 droid began whirring at an increased pitch, dropping lower towards the door. A shot from the door struck it over the doctor’s shoulder and it exploded in a shower of sparks, it’s central power core blown out. 

TK-113 only had a moment to turn toward the door, before something slammed painfully into his helmet, setting his head ringing from even the blunted impact. His legs were swept out from under him and the floor rushed up to meet his chest, knocking the air out of his lungs and cracking his helmet again on the hard duracrete.

Even reeling and concussed he was expecting a hot bolt of plasma to rip through him at any second, but it didn’t come.

“Please, don’t hurt it,” the doctor cried. “It’s just a child. Please!” TK-113 heard the heavy sound of a body pushed to the ground beside him. “No, no,” the doctor continued to beg from his place on the floor.

“What did you do to it?” the Mandalorian’s unmistakable voice, modulated by the helmet and tense with rage, demanded of the doctor.

“I… I protected him! I protected him! If it wasn’t for me, he would already be dead!” The doctor cried, his voice falling off into whimpers of, “please, please, please…” Footsteps passed over TK-113, sounding like echos in his own helmet. He felt like the floor was pitching under his prone body. He tried to lift his head and barely made out the shape of the cowering doctor before darkness closed in around the edges of his vision.

_ He did come back, _ was the last thought TK-113 had before he was swallowed up by the darkness. 


	2. The Merciful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Corin listens to his conscience and Din listens to Grogu.

_ It had to be a desert planet, _ TK-113 thought bitterly as he reviewed the imperial database entry for the dust ball backwater he was speeding toward. The transport ship rattled as it coarsed through hyperspace. TK-113 had a small porthole in the navigation alcove where he sat that threw flashing lights across his visor. Even with his helmet flitters turned up to maximum the sound and the light were making his aching head pound and his stomach roll. He had barely been able to keep food down since the attack, and he’d already puked up his breakfast rations in the fresher after takeoff. He really wanted to be back in his bunk on the Navarro base asleep at that moment, not hurling towards a miserably hot, bright and probably hostile planet.

In the small alcove toward the stern of the craft, KT-113 was mostly hidden from the rest of the troopers in the main crew compartment but he could still hear them: the nervous shifting of boots and armor under the soft buzz of conversation through helmet modulators as the unfamiliar replacements got to know each other and what remained of TK-113’s original squad.

“Is it true we’re headed into Hutt Space?” One of the shinier troopers asked just on the other side of the wall from TK-113.

“New Republic doesn’t have the man-power to control this far out into the sector,” TK-201, a veteran recently transferred from another platoon, responded. “Hutts might as well be the highest authority out here, but I doubt they care too much.”

“It was part of the Empire, though.”

“Yeah, before the Death Star. But who wants to waste time holding onto a hell hole like that. Have you seen the scans? Nothing but sand and rock down there. Must be a few loyal citizens left though; someone passed us the tip when the target showed up.”

“Makes you wonder what our target is doing there.”

“Hiding. Like a rat in a hole.” TK-201 spat with disdain. 

“Is it true we’re going after a Mandalorian? I thought they were all killed?”

“Nah. They’re like roaches. You can destroy the nest, but a few always escape to breed and return.”

“I heard he killed a dozen Stormtroopers when he attacked on Navarro.” There was a tremor in the shinny’s voice that the modulator couldn’t disguise.

“Don’t believe everything you hear,” TK-201 grumbled.

_ It was 13,  _ TK-113 thought.

“Do you know what it is he stole?”

“What does it matter?”

“I heard it was a creature.”

“Don’t pay so much attention to rumors. Maybe it was a creature, doesn’t matter. The Governor wants it back. It’s valuable. It was property of the Empire. Even now, no one messes with us like that and gets away with it. That Mandalorian is in for a world of hurt when we catch him.”

TK-113 frowned behind his helmet, replaying in his mind the briefing he’d had with the Governor before he left:  _ I want the Asset returned alive or terminated if that is not possible. Under no circumstances can the Mandalorian be allowed to slip away again with this prize. Your actions in the Battle on Dalathea do your venerated family proud. It would be a shame, after all you have achieved, for that legacy to end with your failure. _

TK-113 knew that the Governor was dissatisfied with him after he failed to die in the line of duty or kill the Asset before the Mandalorian could take it away. It was only the Doctor’s quick thinking that had saved his life. He was just coming too on the floor of the makeshift laboratory when the Governor strode in. The Doctor was already fervently thanking him, lifting him to his feet:  _ Thank you, thank you, Captain. I’m sure without you, he would have captured me as well or killed me where I stood. Thank you!  _ Whether the Governor bought the lies or not, he couldn’t prove anything and he couldn’t afford to dismiss TK-113 without proof. TK-113 had the shoddy security system to thank as well. There were no monitors, voice or video, in the labradory. 

In the days that followed the Mandalorian’s attack he had reviewed all of the security footage that had been captured, what little of it was there. He watched the armored hunter rip through his squad like they were chumps in a bar brawl. Most chilling of all was the footage from the main conference chamber: four troopers had the mandalorian surrounded, even forced him to drop his blaster and the Asset, before they were perforated by blindingly fast rockets the size of slug bullets that zipped like homing missiles at their vital organs. In a matter of seconds the four troopers were dead and the Mandalorian had barely moved a muscle. 

The Governor had been right about one thing, the Mandalorian’s reputation was not over-exaggerated. 

Now TK-113 was speeding through hyperspace toward a lawless desert rock chasing that same hunter with a group of unfamiliar troopers at his back and little to no information to guide him. The dismal situation bothered him less than it should have. 

_ Maybe the Mandalorian is already gone and we’ll find nothing but rumors and exhaust trails,  _ he told himself.  _ That would be good luck for sure, probably too good to hope for. Maybe he is there and he escapes with the Asset again.  _ TK-113 knew his death would be quick and efficient in that scenario. Maybe the Governor would have his new Sergeant carry out the sentence. Maybe he would send TK-113 back to base for “re-training” and have the IT-0 droid give him a lethal injection where no one would see the shame of a Captain’s failure.  _ Or maybe the Mandalorian isn’t expecting to be caught on Tatooine and I retrieve the Asset.  _ It was too easy to imagine handing the squirming creature into the Governor’s hands, too easy to imagine the little body laid out on the medical table and the syringes digging into the little arms, its faint coos and cries… its body cold and still while the Governor smiled, thin and cold, stroking the golden trappings of his defunct station. 

TK-113 shook himself out of the nightmarish imagination. He forced his eyes to focus back on the planetary database entry for Tatooine.

A moment later the ship gave a lurch as it came out of hyperspace.

“Game time,” TK-201 grunted, followed by the sound of a plastoid plated elbow hitting the chestplate of a sleeping trooper.

“Wha-- are we there?” The shinny asked groggily.

TK-113 stood and pivoted out of the navigation alcove sharply. 

“Prepare for landing,” he ordered the troopers, hearing heels clicking together as he passed and armored men snapping to attention.  _ Time to see what luck has in store,  _ he thought, though what was good luck and what was bad was becoming harder and harder to determine. 

\--

They moved to the communication tower in the center of Mos Eisley in a convoy of armor flashing in the light of the setting suns and rifles at the ready. Tatooine’s afternoon heat was just as horrific as TK-113 had expected. He was drenched in sweat within minutes and feeling even more nauseous with each breeze of hot air. 

The Stromtroopers occupied the central communication tower with little to no resistance. After that it was easy enough to find records of the Razor Crest docking in hanger 3-5 on the western side of town the day before. They moved out as a unit into the port past the ominous monument of speared stormtrooper helmets. 

“Fan out,” TK-113 ordered as they closed in toward hanger 3-5. “We approach from multiple angles. Five man groups, watch your backs. The Asset is to be retrieved unharmed unless secondary directive is initiated. Give the Mandalorian no mercy.”  _ Because he will give you none, _ TK-113 thought.  _ But that isn’t quite true, is it? He left me alive.  _ TK-113 shook the thought out of his head and focused on his hud showing the splitting troopers reporting movements as they closed in around their destination. 

_ “Squad Dorn reporting, eyes on the hanger,”  _ the first group to arrive checked in over the comms. 

“Proceed with caution,” TK-113 ordered as he led his squad around toward the back exit.

_ “Razor Crest is confirmed in hanger 3-5. No sign of Target or Asset.”  _ Dorn Squad checked in.

_ “Squad Enth reporting, We’ve sighted the Target,” _ the comms crackled as the rear squad leader reported in.

“Eyes on the Asset?” TK-113 demanded.

_ “Negative. Moving in to intercept.”  _

“Acknowledged. All squads converge on the Target’s position.” TK-113 turned sharply and set off at a run, the hot air feeling like thick soup dragging around his body. His squad was huffing to keep up behind him and one cursed the increased pace under his breath. The four men with TK-113 were all new transfers, replacements for the troopers lost on Navarro. They didn’t know the urgency that was needed. They didn’t know what to expect.

_ “Back up! We need --Ah!”  _ Enth Squad’s leader screamed over the comms descending into a blood curdling cry of pain before being blacked out by static and the roar of flames engulfing the microphone. 

“What was that?” The shinny trooper behind TK-113 asked, panic in his voice.

“Keep moving,” TK-201 ordered him. 

They rounded a corner in time to see the Mandalorian, two blocks ahead, silver beskar winking in the faint moon light, firing three rapid shots into the last member of Enth squad. A shadowy figure stepped out from behind a vacant merchant’s stall, a shorter dark haired human clutching something to his side with one arm. The new figure kicked over a gas canister from the stall, sending it tumbling into the Mandalorian from behind. The Mandalorian tripped over the unexpected canister and rolled into the dirt. The shadowy figure dashed over, forcing the Mandalorian on to his back with one heavy boot and leveling a blaster at the bounty hunter. 

TK-113 was just getting close enough to hear what the stranger said and see the smug smile tugging at his face.

“Nice distraction, those Stormtroopers. Now, you just keep your hands up where I can see them, Mando.”

TK-113 raised his E-11 and dialed up his helmet speakers.

“Halt! Both of you!” He heard the sound of charging blasters beside him as his squad formed up at his back. His heart was pounding in his ears and his breath was labored from more than running. 

The stranger looked up, handsome face twisted with anger. The bundle in his arms wriggled and one large ear slipped free of the swadling: a long, pointed, green ear.

“This is Guild business,” the stranger snapped.

“Hand over the Asset and the Mandalorian.”

“Didn’t you hear me bucket-head! This is Guild business. This Mandalorian is a traitor to the Bounty Hunter’s Guild that I caught. I’m not handing anything over to you.” There was a note of rising panic under the outraged indignation. Besh and Cherek squad were closing in from the other end of the street now, moving more cautiously. The stranger’s head whipped around when he heard their boots shifting the sand and gravel.

“The Asset is Imperial Property and the Mandalorian is a thief and fugitive,” TK-113 insisted moving forward. “Turn them over to us and you will be rewarded for both.”

“And you’ll hush this up like it never happened?” The stranger shook his head. “No. I’m not gonna be cheated out of the credit for this.” 

TK-113 felt his stomach roll.  _ Is that all this creature and this man’s life are worth to him? A reputation?  _ He wondered and it put a sour taste in his mouth.

“Name your price?”

“I want his amor--helmet too.”

TK-113 saw the Mandalorian tense on the ground. The stormtrooper captain shifted his rifle from the stranger to point down at the armored man. 

“That can be arranged,” he said and it was only a half lie. The armor was made from the beskar payment originally paid for the Asset. It wasn’t a stretch that it could be payment again for the Asset’s return. His words seemed to assuage the stranger. He took his foot off the Mandalorian and backed a few steps away. 

TK-113 trusted his squad to keep their guns on the stranger. They were foolish enough to think the Mandalorian no longer a threat, with the rifle on his back pinned behind him and his blaster in the dirt just out of reach. TK-113 knew better, he saw the Mandalorian’s hand twitch and a flickering of small pinprick lights appear on the vambrace. 

He kicked the Mandalorian’s shoulder quickly, rolling the man over and grabbed the dangerous vambrace, dragging it up behind the mandalorian’s head so the the launcher was pressed up against the Mandalorian’s neck, where there was only thick cloth to protect the vulnerable flesh below.

“Release those, and the first flesh they perforate is your own,” TK-113 warned the Mandalorian in as even a voice as he could muster. His pulse was pounding in his own ears knowing how close to death he hovered. He could feel the Mandalorian freeze when the vambrace was forced against the top of his spine, just under the edge of his helmet.

The Mandalorian’s hand gave a slow twist and TK-113 felt the launcher under his wrist power down, soft vibrations quieting under his glove. 

“Captain!” TK-201 called out and TK-113 looked up, noticing for the first time the sounds of shuffling feet echoing off the buildings around them.. 

“What the…?” The stranger trailed off as he took in the same sight. 

Figures melted out of the allies and shadows, a hoard of variously shaped aliens and droids armed with blasters and makeshift weapons of all sorts, dozens of them filling in either end of the open street. TK-113 felt new sweat breaking out on his neck that had nothing to do with the lingering heat of the day or the Mandalorian. 

“Maybe you bucket-heads didn’t hear through your thick helmets,” one of the assembling mob shouted, breaking over the soft rumble of whispers, “the Empire’s dead. You and the scum who work for you are not welcome here!”

“Yeah!” A cry went up through the people and like a dam was shattered the shouts were unleashed.

“W-wait I’m not with--” the stranger didn’t have time or volume to protest.

_ “WHA CHINGA!”  _ (GET THEM!) A devaronian screamed in huttese and the mob charged. Blaster fire singed the air and chaos exploded around TK-113. 

_ They’ll kill the Asset too!  _ TK-113 realized in terror. A small bundle would be trampled or crushed in the melee without a second thought. He spun to see the stranger raise his blaster toward the opposite rooftop where bug-like figures had appeared to shoot down at the stormtroopers. TK-113 didn’t pause to think, just lunged upward, releasing the Mandalorian. He rammed the stranger with his shoulder and snatched the blanketed bundle away, curling around it. The stranger reacted quickly, kicking out his boot, tangling it with TK-113’s feet. The stormtrooper stumbled, falling to his knees. A shot went off behind his head, setting his ears ringing and a sharp pain lanced white hot behind his eyes even with the sound dampening of his helmet. Heat and a burning agony ripped through his side a moment later, choking the air in his lungs. 

TK-113 stumbled to his feet with the Asset bundled to his chest. In the periphery of his HUD he saw the Mandalorian stand in a flurry of movement, getting his blaster in hand and aim at the stranger. TK-113 didn’t pause to see who won that shoot out. He made a break for the nearest alley. It was a narrowing gutter between two buildings crammed with empty and broken shipping crates. 

He was two steps into the darkness when a hand closed around his shoulder and spun him around. Pain, like a red hot poker in his gut, flared and his right leg spasmed under him, sending him again to his knees before his attacker. A large shadow blocked the alley raising a jagged looking blade over its head. TK-113 held the Asset to his chest and fumbled for his E-11 awkwardly with one hand. He knew in that split second, he wouldn’t be fast enough.

Two quick red flashes exploded behind the figure and Corin had the wherewithal to collapse sideways against the alley wall before his would-be killer fell dead in front of him. 

TK-113 looked up at the Mandalorian’s dark T-shaped visor and the curve of the helmet illuminated in the alley opening. TK-113’s E-11 fell out of his hand into the sand. He glanced down at the mess of burned plastoid on the left side of his abdomen. The cuisse around his thigh was brilliant red with rivulets of blood. His HUD was already reading out the alarming decline of his vitals. With a thick gulp, the stormtrooper gathered the bundle and lifted it toward the Mandalorian.

“Take him.”

The Mandalorian hesitated, blaster still trained on TK-113’s chest. 

“My squad won’t make it out of here. He’ll be killed. Take him. Go.” TK-113 knew his voice was getting thick and choked but what did it matter now.

The Mandalorian didn’t need to be told a third time. He reached down and grabbed up the bundle, helmet dipping as he looked over the squirming creature for damage. It made a soft cooing sound like nothing TK-113 had ever heard it make before; something like a happy sound. 

“Thank you,” the Mandalorian said, his gentle voice brisk, but sincere. He cradled the Asset to his chest and made for the far end of the alley. A shooter broke away from the chaos of the street, following the shine of the beskar helmet and ran into the alleyway shooting. Green bolts of plasma shot over TK-113’s head and licked at the Mandalorian’s heels.

TK-113 grabbed up his E-11 and shot the unsuspecting assailant from his low angle. He used a hand on the wall to help drag him to his feet, though his side was on fire just moving to breath. Each step was a fresh blast of heat and pain as he backed down the alley, shooting down any creature that dared to enter from his end. He heard the Mandalorian’s blaster fire further along and nearly tripped over the corpses of two rodians that had been waiting at the other end. Fallen in the sand was a square device with a triangle of wires that beeped with a flashing red light that grew fainter and slower. TK-113 made a point to trod on the tracking fob as he stumbled after the Mandalorian, grinding the pieces into the dirt. 

When the Mandalorian came to the next corner he glanced back at the injured stormtrooper. If he was surprised the unexpected ally was guarding his back, his helmet showed no sign of it. The Mandalorian glanced carefully around the side of the building at the street he would need to cross then quickly pulled back with a  _ tsk _ of frustration. His hesitance gave TK-113 time to catch up at his slower limp. He didn’t pause at the corner.

_ What do I have left to lose?  _ He wondered.  _ A few minutes of pain before I pass out? _ He rounded the corner and started shooting, E-11 bouncing wildly in his one handed grip, the other hand pressed over his bleeding wound. A three hooded figures spun with weapons raised and fired back as TK-113 limped across the street, drawing their fire. It was enough of a distraction for the Mandalorian to pick them off with uncanny accuracy in the crossfire. A blast from the last hooded shooter landed in the sand between TK-113’s feet, barely missing him, and turning a streak of sand to blackened soot and glowing bits of molten glass. By a small bit of good luck he was no worse injured than before. 

The Mandalorian was off again before the bodies hit the sand, cutting across toward hanger 3-5, and TK-113 followed him as fast as his injury would allow. His mind was clouding with a fog of exhaustion that made it hard to remember why he was following this figure or where they were going. He barely registered arriving at the hanger or stumbling down the stairs, shoulder against the wall for support, leaving a trail of red boot prints on every other step. TK-113 fell back against the wall beside the archway opening at the bottom of the stairs.

“AH!” A woman’s cry startled him. 

“It’s alright,” the Mandalorian said quickly. TK-113 blinked rapidly and willed his eyes to focus. The Mandalorian was talking to a short curly haired woman. She was holding a scatter gun that the Mandalorian had by the barrel, directing it up and away from TK-113. 

_ Why would the Mandalorian do that?  _ TK-113 wondered in his disorientation. 

The Asset was still bundled to the Mandalorian’s chest and he held it closer as he explained to the mechanic: “He returned the kid to me.”

_ Oh, that’s why! _ TK-113 remembered.

“He doesn’t look good,” the woman stated the obvious.

“I have to go.”

“Yeah. Well I figured when your  _ partner _ came back without you I wasn’t getting paid,” she put the scatter gun to her side and patted one of her pockets with a self-satisfied smile. “Picked his pocket though when the Stormtroopers distracted him. You’re covered, not to worry. I’m just glad you got this little one back safe and sound.” She pointed at the bundle and gave it a motherly smile.

“You should find somewhere safe to hide until the mob quiets down.”

“Oh don’t worry about me,” the woman brushed off the Mandalorian’s concern as if he were an overanxious child not a hardened bounty hunter. TK-113 would have probably laughed at the exchange if he had the presence of mind to. Then his comm interrupted, crackling to life over his external speakers as well.

_ “Target has retreated to Hanger 3-5. Regroup and move to second directive.” _

The Mandalorian’s helmet snapped up to pin TK-113 with the glare of his visor.

“Second directive?” He demanded.

TK-113 coughed wetly, seeing droplets of red on his own HUD. He tore off the helmet, dragging in a desperate gasp of the unfiltered sticky hot air before he could speak. “Lethal force,” he managed to gasp out, “No survivors. Go!”

The Mandalorian didn’t need to hear that twice. The mechanic was already shooing him toward his ship. 

TK-113 saw for a moment dark eyes looking back at him over the Mandalorian’s shoulder between the pauldron and the helmet, and the tip of one long pointed green ear. The rear bay closed behind the Mandalorian and those dark eyes disappeared from sight. A moment later the engines began to whir to life, filling the hanger with the thrum of displaced air. 

Booted footsteps pounded on the stairs beside TK-113. He lifted his rifle and waited with labored breathing. Three troopers stormed out without checking the corners, their sole focus on the ship lifting off the ground. 

_ Shinies, _ TK-113 thought sadly before he pulled the trigger and dropped the first one. The second had enough warning to turn before the next shot caught him in the chest and the last got two shots off at TK-113 before he too dropped with a smoking hole in his cuirass. 

Darkness closed in around TK-113’s vision again. Maybe it was becoming a familiar sensation because he didn’t feel afraid. The sand under his feet was pitching and the wall bucked away from him. Each thrumming beat of the ship engines was a physical pressure squeezing his brain through his ears… or was that his own heart beat… 

The darkness closed in over TK-113’s head and he didn’t even feel his body hit the ground.

\--

The Mandalorian moved through the startup sequence quickly, with well practiced motions, skipping engine warmup and flight checks without hesitation. It was almost second nature after so many years, so part of his mind was still focused on the child; the child he had come so close to losing. 

The small creature had crawled up on the control panels to look out the front view-port. He was watching below where three stormtroopers charged into the hanger. The Mandalorian fumbled to get the shields up and online before they could open fire, but he didn’t need to. The defector, their own captain, shot each stormtrooper one after another from where he leaned against the wall, still holding the bloody wound in his side that Toro Calican had left him. The child reached up toward the transparisteel with his little three fingered claw, towards the injured stormtrooper traitor. 

“He won’t survive,” the Mandalorian told the child briskly and pushed forward the lever for the vertical repulsors. The Razor Crest shuddered as it lifted off it’s landing gear. 

The child cooed sadly and tottered forward over the controls to put both hands against the view-port and press his little face closer toward the stormtrooper. Past the large ears, the Mandalorian watched the trooper sway, blaster dropping forgotten from his hand, then collapse in the dust. The child gave a short cry that trailed off into a whining coo. 

“He would have taken you back. He’s the enemy.”

The child turned to look up at him with big brown eyes and a puckered brow that asked,  _ was he? Do you believe that? _

“ _ Dank farrik! _ ”

The Mandalorian hit a few more switches and throttled back the repulsors before spinning out of the pilot’s chair with an annoyed growl. He slid down the ladder into the cargo bay and punched the side hatch controls. The door opened on the cold desert night and the Mandalorian leaned out, sighting along his vambrace toward the unconscious Stormtrooper captain. His grapple line shot out, snapping around the fallen figure. It was the work of a moment to clip the line around the rescue pulley built into the door frame and winch the limp body up. 

The Mandalorian hauled the body through the hatch and let it drop on the cargo bay floor. He elbowed the panel to close the door, before turning, panting slightly with exertion, to look over the Stormtrooper that had returned the child to him. 

The man’s unhelmeted head lolled to the side, short dark hair sticking to the sides of his face with sweat. His mouth and brow were twisted with pain but the Mandalorian could see the features beneath the grimace were handsome. He had an attractive square jawline and high cheekbones, the kind of face he expected to see in a holovid not under a bucket. The stormtrooper’s side was a mess of burned plastoid and blood that was already pooling under his body, dripping through the grated flooring. The Mandalorian’s helmet did a quick scan of the lifesigns it could read through the armor with dismal results. He had been right: the stormtrooper wouldn’t survive. 

The Mandalorian stepped over the dying man and climbed back up the ladder into the cockpit to complete the take off before more troopers arrived. The child had climbed down from the control panels and was lurking by his seat.

“Strap in,” The Mandalorian told his charge before turning his attention to the ship. He didn’t pause to check in with the Mos Eisley tower as he flew the Razor Crest out of the city, but the tower didn’t hail him either. Below him he could see fires throughout the blocks where the mob had clashed with the stormtroopers. On the outskirts of town there was a crowd of torch lights surrounding a burning ship; a destroyed Imperial Transport. 

The Mandalorian laid in a course into the upper atmosphere. He chanced a look back but the child’s seat was empty. 

“ _ Osik _ ,” he growled under his breath. 

As soon as the ship was headed out of the star-system on a safe course, the Mandalorian set the navi-computer to calculating their next hyperspace jump and headed down to the cargo bay to find the kid.

The child wasn’t hiding. He was at the bottom of the ladder, curled up on the Stormtrooper’s chest, head against the plastoid, eyes closed and breathing evenly, asleep. The Mandalorian released a sigh of relief and bent over to pick up the little creature. His hands paused when he saw the wound in the stormtrooper’s side. 

_ I could have sworn that was still bleeding, _ he thought. There was blood on the deck but less than he had expected. He scanned the stormtrooper again with his helmet. The results read back improved heart-rate, blood pressure, oxygen levels… every indication that the stormtrooper would survive his injuries with minimal attention. 

The Mandalorian lifted the sleeping child off the stormtrooper’s chest and stared at his new, very attractive, very problematic passenger. He took a deep breath and let out a long suffering sigh of resignation.

“ _ Dank farrik _ .”


	3. The Deserter - Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Corin says farewell, but only briefly, and the Mandalorian finds a new job.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously: With the unexpected help of a Stormtrooper the Mandalorian and the child escaped an angry mob on Tatooine. The Mandalorian brought the mortally wounded trooper aboard to appease the child, and was shocked at the deserter's seemingly magical recovery.

TK-113 woke up slowly, clawing his way out of a deep unconsciousness. He was comfortably--blissfully--cool, a balm after months on the molten planet of Navarro and then the scorching desert of Tatooine. The cold air on his skin felt amazing, even if he was lying on something very hard and unyielding flat. It was giving him a crick in his neck. But his head felt better than it had for the past several days, less dizzy and the persistent ache was gone. 

_I guess the concussion wasn’t as bad as I thought,_ he wondered.

He blinked his eyes open to stare up at a dimly lit ceiling of exposed conduits and wires. It was a mess. He could make out three or four different patch jobs covered in varying layers of dust. The ship around him was thrumming with engine noises discordantly and shook in a less than safe way as it cruised through hyperspace. Somewhere an old food processor was whirring and gurgling like a soft mechanical death-rattle. 

“Uuwhuuh!” A coo right next to his head made TK-113 turn sharply. His eyes met the large brown orbs of a tiny figure just two feet from his face. The Asset tilted its head as their gazes met, oversized ears flopping. “Uuuwha!” it cooed again and lifted one tiny three fingered hand towards TK-113’s frozen expression of shock and confusion.

“Leave him alone,” a modulated voice called from deeper in the ship. TK-113 looked up past the small creature towards the other occupant of the cramped cargo bay. The Mandalorian stood beside a food processor built into the wall stirring a bowl. He was dressed in full armor still with his blaster holstered at his side. The rifle was nowhere to be seen, but TK-113 couldn’t imagine it was far off. 

“Come get your dinner before it gets cold,” the Mandalorian said in a gentle tone. 

The Asset turned to look over his shoulder then back towards TK-113.

“Unless you want me to eat it for you,” the Mandalorian threatened glibly. 

The Asset cooed with indignation and turned away with one last glance at TK-113. It shuffled with slow footsteps towards the armored bounty hunter, lifting its little arms in a clear request. The Mandalorian met the little creature half way, picking him up with care. He set the child on a crate and knelt in front of it.

TK-113 could only stare at the unimaginable scene before him. The Mandolorian lifted the small spoon with his gloved and gauntleted hands as if they were made of the most delicate glass and tipped the gruel-like rations into the greedy little mouth. The child reached out with clawed hands to hold onto the leather covered fingers with each sip. The tender motions were so at odds with the visage of a terrifying warrior enfolded in metal armor, helmed in cold steel and bristling with lethal weapons.

“You should be resting,” the Mandalorian said.

TK-113 didn’t realize the words were addressed to him until the helmet turned ever so slightly backward in his direction. He found his mouth was painfully dry when he tried to respond, his tongue was glued to his teeth and his throat burned with thirst. He struggled to swallow before he could speak.

“W-water, please.”

The Mandalorian put down the child’s half-empty bowl. He got up to pull a bottle out of the conservator and bring it over to TK-113, setting it down by the Stormtrooper captain’s head before returning to the child. While his caretaker's back was turned, the little green creature had tottered over to his food bowl, shoved one small hand in, and was currently licking the gruel off the clawed fingers, dripping globs of the gritty mush onto his little onesie. The Mandalorian gave a heavy sigh when he saw the mess and got to work cleaning the chortling child with a damp rag.

TK-113 gingerly rolled over and shuffled into a half sitting position against the wall of the cargo bay, expecting sharp shots of pain through his side with each movement but nothing came. He realized someone had stripped him of his armor and kit, leaving him in just the tight black bodysuit and his boots. They had also seen to his wounds. His side was bandaged up with gauze stretching around his entire waist and there was a four inch square bacta patch taped over the inside of his forearm that he couldn't explain. 

To his surprise, the injury on his forearm was what hurt most. It throbbed in a dull way and itched with the familiar feeling of bacta against his skin. He inspected it briefly, wondering where it had come from and how it got under his gauntlet and vambrace, unless the Mandalorian had cut him while he was unconscious.

The bottle was surprisingly better than water: it was a flavored vitamin drink, and it was delightfully cold. TK-113 had drunk half of it before he paused to gasp for breath.

“That’ll help you recover a bit,” the Mandalorian spoke again, though he was still focused on feeding the Asset. “You lost a lot of blood. You’ll probably feel weak for a few days yet.”

_Does he intend to keep me alive that long?_ TK-113 thought, but that seemed like a dangerous place to begin his questions.

“H-how did I get here?” He asked.

The Mandalorian grunted and fed the child another spoonful. “Kid didn’t want to leave you behind.”

TK-113 blinked in confusion and took another deep gulp of the drink while he processed that answer. He put a hand over where he remembered being shot and pressed gently. His side was sore but not stinging or numb. It felt like a deep bruise after several days of healing, not a recent blaster shot that had gone in one side and out the other.

“I’m not dead,” he wondered aloud.

“No.”

“How?”

The Mandalorian didn’t respond, just continued to feed the child. TK-113 leaned back against the wall and watched. His mind replayed the events of the last few days, up through the last hours of consciousness before he awoke on the Razor Crest. His miraculous survival forced him to face consequences he had not anticipated.

_I’m officially a traitor to the Empire,_ he thought. The realization carried with it a heavy feeling of dread. Wordless disgust and disapproval from the ghosts of his father, his uncle, his comrades and mentors all chorused and echoed in his ears. _Traitor. Betrayer. Deserter. Criminal. Scum. Filth. Failure._

_I’m officially a traitor to the Empire. Not a stormtrooper. Not a soldier. Not a patriot. Not my father’s son. Nothing. Less than nothing. Worse than nothing: a failure._

Across the cargo bay the child cried out a distressed coo and the Mandalorian pulled the spoon back. 

“Enough? You barely finished it?” 

The child waved his small claws before covering his face with them and ducking his head. 

“Alright,” the Mandalorian said, "don't complain when you're hungry later." He stood with the bowl and moved back to the tiny galley to put the food away. As soon as his visor was turned the child crawled off the crate he was set on and started shuffling across the bay toward TK-113. The former Stromtrooper couldn’t help but smile at the large innocent eyes fixated on him. 

_Any other course of action and this little creature would be dead. That would be wrong wouldn't it?_ He reasoned. It wasn’t the first time he had disagreed with the actions of the Empire, or even the first time he had failed to complete his orders. But this was different. This time he killed his brothers in arms. This time he had taken something someone very powerful wanted very very badly--enough to give away a fortune in beskar to an enemy to retrieve it. 

“Oh no you don’t,” The Mandalorian strode up behind the child before it reached TK-113 and scooped it off the ground. He cradled it to his chest and whipped the last of the child’s meal from the little green face. To the former stormtrooper’s surprise, the Mandalorian dragged over another crate and sat down across the bay from him. The armored bounty hunter took a moment to settle the child on his knee. The Asset stared at TK-113, head tilting inquisitively to the side and studying his new temporary traveling companion. There was an open expressiveness that the child had never shown in Imperial custody, at least not that TK-113 had ever seen. It made the creature seem even more human and more youthful, less like a small scared animal in a cage.

“I have some questions for you,” The Mandalorian said at length, voice gentle but grave. There was no threat in his words, but it was easy enough to see TK-113 was at the bounty hunter’s mercy. Having the black visor turned fully on the stormtrooper -- _former_ stormtrooper sent a cold shot of terror down his spine. He swallowed the lump that jumped into his throat and tried to keep his breathing calm while his heart rate thundered in his ears.

“I’ll do my best to answer.”

“What do you know about the child?”

“Not much. I was just part of the Governor and Dr. Persing’s guard.”

“What is he? What species?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think even Dr. Persing knew.” TK-113 shook his head, feeling the panic rising with each useless answer.

“Why does the Empire want him?”

“Some kind of experimentation, but I don’t know what the goal was. They took blood, a lot of blood, when they had him on Navarro.”

“Who have they sent after the child?”

TK-113 swallowed before answering in a soft whisper: “Everyone.”

The Mandalorian’s helmet turned away and he made a soft sound of annoyance. 

“That’s… really about all I know.” TK-113 looked down at the mostly empty bottle in his hand and waited for the Mandalorian to speak. He had nothing else to offer. The next logical step, he knew, would be to throw him out an airlock so he couldn’t put the child at risk again. 

“I’ve removed your ID chip,” the Mandalorian said. TK-113 glanced down at the bandage around his forearm, putting the two facts together. It seemed like a waste of effort if he was just going to be chucked into space. “And disabled the tracking devices in your armor.”

“The boots have--”

“I got that one too,” the Mandalorian assured him. The bounty hunter stood up and pulled down a folded pile of cloth from a shelf above his head. He dropped them beside the former stormtrooper. “You’ll want to change into something less conspicuous than that suit. It’s not much, but you won’t be shot on sight for wearing it.”

_He… he isn’t going to space me? Or shoot me? He’s… letting me go?_ TK-113 felt a flicker of hope growing in his chest, maybe the scales of luck had tipped in his favor.

“We’ll arrive on Berilia in a few hours. It’s a shipping stop-over. You’ll be able to find work there, transport off world if you want,” The Mandalorian was already walking away towards the ladder up to the cockpit. 

“You’re letting me go?” TK-113 asked, heart in his throat.

“Fresher is there. Try to rest until we arrive,” The Mandalorian replied. He hoisted the child onto his shoulder and started up the ladder, seemingly without another glance at the ex-stormtrooper, but the visor made it hard to tell where his gaze was directed.

Alone in the cargo bay TK-113 leaned back against the wall and breathed a heavy sigh. Absently his hand ran over the fabric of his new clothes: the cold metal fasteners of the pants, their rough and worn texture, the knitted fabric of the light shirt. 

_If the Empire declares me dead on Tatooine I might last a while bouncing between odd jobs. If I keep my head low in the outer rim somewhere I might live… what? A week? A month? Maybe a year before bad luck catches up to me? What would I do? Where would I go? Not a desert dust ball that’s for sure._ His mind strayed to the frosty mountains of Esypso where he’d finished his training. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to find a cold world like that where he could wake up to a white blanket of snow and a crisp clear sky. Esypso was in the Mid-rim, closer to the Core, New Republic territory now. He would never be able to return there. Now he could never return to the remnants of the Empire that spread through the outer rim. Hut Space would be dangerous and hostile to a human who barely understood the language, especially one with a potential bounty on his head. There were precious few places left in the galaxy for a deserting stormtrooper to hide. 

He drank the last of the flavored drink and shakily got to his feet to return the bottle to the recycling unit. His legs were surprisingly steady, if stiff, and the nausea of the past few days remained mercifully at bay. He crammed into the small fresher and set about changing into the new clothes. They were maybe a size too large, but TK-113 had to admit that he was skinnier than he had been in a long time. A year or more of tight rations and longer shifts had stripped any softness and some of the bulk from his body. 

The pants were sturdy but worn and had to be belted tight on his narrow hips. The shirt had a few patches, as well as a variety of stains from what appeared to be engine oil, hydraulic fluids, and what was possibly blood. There were marks of wear along the sleeves and around the shoulders like it was commonly worn under some kind of straps--or armor.

_These are the Mandalorian’s clothes,_ he realized belatedly. _What other clothes would the man have conveniently stashed on his ship? I’m sure he’s not in the business of saving random stormtroopers, no matter how decent and honorable the bounty hunter is._ TK-113 tried not to think about how the fabric rustling against his own flesh had been under that heavy beskar against another’s skin. That line of thinking just made him wonder what the Mandalorian would look like without the armor, just soft cloth over hard muscles. _Would the gentle voice finally match the man?_ He wondered.

TK-113 splashed water over his face and neck before giving himself a serious look in the small tarnished and dirty mirror over the sink.

A virtual stranger stared back at him. Some parts were familiar: the same straight nose as his father and high cheekbones like his mother’s. The two day’s worth of stubble shadowing his jaw was familiar (the kind of imperfection his father never would have allowed to mar his own image). It was the eyes that were strange to him, bright blue and intense. There was life in those eyes he was unaccustomed to seeing in his own face. 

TK-113--No, not TK-113--he would never again be TK-113. Traitors didn’t have TK numbers. Traitors had _names_.

Corin straightened his shoulders and stared down the unfamiliar person in the mirror. 

_I chose this,_ he told himself. _I wanted to do the right thing and the right thing led me here. I’ll deal with whatever comes next, good luck or bad_ . _Whoever I was when I arrived on Tatooine, I can never go back. I will never be that person again._

Corin went back to where he had awoken on the floor of the cargo bay and leaned against the wall. He took a deep breath and settled in to wait, a passenger hurtling towards some new fate.

\--

The Mandalorian had been to Berilia several times before to refuel or pick up a bounty hiding out there. The thing he always forgot until just after touching down was how smelly the planet was. The near perpetual misting rain combined with a flourishing local ecology of yellow algaes made the port smell like a putrid fermenting compost pile. The Razor Crest’s cargo ramp lowered and let in the first wafts of wet air and the barest hint of the smell made it through his helmet’s filtration system. The Mandalorian knew by the time he left his helmet would be clogged with it, and the stink would follow him until the filter was changed.

The stormtrooper--ex-stormtrooper--didn’t have the benefit of a helmet. The Mandalorian saw in his periphery the man nearly gagging at the smell . The child in the Mandalorian’s arms giggled, seemingly delighted with the aroma. 

_He’s gonna try to eat the algae,_ The Mandalorian realized with resigned annoyance.

The landing bay was little more than a gray ring-shaped tent spotted with umber growths. It had an open center large enough to accommodate a ship twice the Razor Crest’s size and a plethora of mechanical repair equipment stacked up on stilted platforms to keep them out of the many puddles covering the ground. The blue skinned Twi’lek dock-master started toward them from under the awning and the Mandalorian stepped out into the rain to meet him.

“Looks like you’ve got a bit of damage on your port engine there,” the Dock-master commented, squinting up at the Crest then whipping water out of his eyes.

“Just a refuel,” the Mandalorian told him and dug out a few credit chips from his pocket.

“You hear about the New Republic tariffs?” The dock-master asked, shaking the few chips together in his palm. “Fuel prices have been skyrocketing.”

“Whatever that will get me will be fine,” the Mandalorian replied. 

The dock-master scowled at him, but he took the credits and shuffled off. 

“And no droids near my ship,” the Mandalorian added to the Twi’lek’s back. _Damn Calican, damn Fennek, damn Empire and Republic alike,_ he thought, feeling the lightness of his wallet keenly. _I’m gonna need another job, and soon._

The hair on the back of his neck prickled and he turned to see the ex-stormtrooper watching him. The man stepped out into the rain, raising his shoulders as the cold water hit him. The Mandalorian felt a little sorry he couldn’t even offer the man a coat. The thin shirt he had given the deserter was quickly damp and sticking to every lean muscled line of the man’s chest. The Mandalorian had to admit he didn’t mind the view and the other man didn’t seem too bothered by the cold.

The ex-stormtrooper followed him through a long tented tunnel away from the landing bay. At its end was a grated metal bridge over a culvert of rushing water clogged with clumps of algae. On the other side began the hodge-podge of covered stalls and stands of the port side market.

“This is where we part ways,” the Mandalorian said. “I don’t need to tell you what happens if you go back to the Empire or lead other bounty hunters after me.” He left his threat vague and his tone even but he could see the way the ex-trooper paled and hunched over, like he was trying to make himself physically smaller.

“I-I know,” the man stuttered with a nod that set droplets of rain scattering from his wet hair. “You don’t have to worry about that. I...Thank you,” The trooper said, shuffling his feet in the shallow puddle they were standing in. 

The Mandalorian turned to look at the deserter, really studying the man he had saved beyond the beautiful face. The ex-trooper kept his head down and his eyes averted in a way that spoke more of habit than of fear. His hunched shoulders rippled with muscles but he was skinny, skinny in a way that spoke of hunger, not health. There were dark circles under his eyes like he didn’t sleep well. When the man’s eyes flickered up to meet the Mandalorian’s visor, there was apprehension and disbelief in the bright blue behind his lashes, like he was still unsure he was actually being let go.

“You didn’t have to save me; I know that,” the trooper added. “An honorable man could have done less with a clear conscience.”

“I could say the same,” the Mandalorian replied. He hated how stiffly the words came out. It wasn’t often he wished he could affect a kinder demeanor. He had to admit to himself that the helmet was only partially to blame.

A bitter smile passed over the beautiful face as the ex-trooper looked away, pulling the lightest of dimples in his cheeks. The Mandalorian resolutely ignored the way that expression made his chest feel uncomfortably tight.

“Look out for the-the child,” the ex-stormtrooper said, looking with a softly at the kid in the Mandalorian’s arms.

The Mandalorian just nodded. 

The deserter glanced up at the helmet with those blue eyes once more. Then he turned and set off into the rainy market, nothing to his name but a breathtakingly handsome smile and the clothes on his back. 

That, the Mandalorian expected, was the last he would see of the ex-stormtrooper. 

Refueling wouldn’t take long. In the meantime, the kid could do with a real meal, and they needed to stock up on a few more supplies: rations, ammunition, repair materials for the _Crest_ , replacements for his depleted medical kit. The few credits he had left weren’t going to cover it all, he’d have to cut corners somewhere. The thought made the Mandalorian’s weariness weigh heavier on his aching shoulders. 

_When was the last time I slept--really slept,_ he wondered. Before the tense hyperspace trip with an inexplicably surviving ex-stormtrooper in his hold. Before his night spent running from a mob in Mos Eisley and riding back over the dunes after Calican. Before the restless snatches of reprieve he caught waiting out Fennec in the desert. Before the dogfight over Tatooine with the last bounty hunter who had tracked him and the child down on the edge of Hutt Space…. _Days,_ he realized, _it’s been days._

He counted his credits carefully and set off into the Market. All the choices were hard and nothing was cheap. 

By the time he returned several hours later his weariness was a bone-deep exhaustion. He trudged through the puddles of yellow slime with boxes of supplies and a mesh bag of rations in one arm and the child on the other. He crossed back over the grated bridge to the landing bay tunnel, thinking of his bunk and the peaceful hours of sleep he could grab in hyperspace. Long tendrils of the yellow fauna hung around the opening of the tented tunnel swaying the light wind that threw the rain against his helmet. 

As he passed a hearty gust smacked one directly into his visor, sending an extra strong whiff of the planet’s stench into his helmet. He groaned, a noise which became an aborted curse when he heard the child’s lips smacking together. He looked down to see the creature’s claw clinging to a length of algae and a bright yellow smear across its little face.

“Uwah?” It cooed and the Mandalorian cursed.

“Hey, get that out of your mouth! That’s not good to eat.” He dropped the supplies haphazardly in the puddle under foot to wrestle the forbidden treat from the kid. 

Behind him, the grates of the bridge rattled.

In half a breath the Mandalorian had his blaster raised, kid tucked to his side, and the approaching figure in his sights.

It was the deserter.

The man’s hands flew up when he saw the weapon, open palms facing forward above his shoulders in surrender and his blue eyes widened. He was soaked through with rain, wet dark hair sticking to his forehead and the faded blue shirt clinging to the muscles of his arms and chest. 

“We had an arrangement,” the Mandalorian said, an uncomfortable tightness in his chest.

“We did--do, but I may have found you a job,” the deserter said quickly, expression waring between fear and desperation. 

_Is this a trap?_ The Mandalorian thought immediately with dread. He wanted to think this man was one of the few decent souls caught in bad circumstances. He really did. But he’d been stabbed, shot, and worse by too many Imperials to trust without verification. 

“I don’t need your job, whatever it is,” he answered. A look of disbelief flickered across the deserter’s face before he could school his expression.

“Maybe you do, maybe you don’t. That’s not…” The man shook his head, clearly struggling for words. “It’s as straight-forward as a job can be, minimal danger, and should pay well. It’s a good cause.”

“When something sounds that easy it’s usually a trap,” the Mandalorian countered.

“It’s not, I sw--”

Splashing footsteps in the puddles brought the arrival of three new figures around the side of the next tent. One of them gave a startled shout of alarm and all three froze, leaning in together. An old man in a hooded poncho pulled an elderly woman in towards him with an arm around her shoulders. She clutched a large suitcase in one hand and a gangly boy, maybe 8 years old, to her front with the other. The three arrivals looked with fear from the deserter to the Mandalorian and his drawn blaster.

“Who are they?” The Mandalorian demanded.

“The clients,” the deserter answered, “They need passage to the Seswennan Embassy on Seorus, two systems over; quiet, fast, and untraceable passage. The transport they were meant to join never arrived, leaving them stranded here.” His voice dropped low and he said the next words hesitantly, “They’re refugees from the Imperial colonies.”

The Mandalorian looked between the deserter and the little family huddling together in the rain. His mind told him it could still be a trap, but it didn’t feel like one.

In his arms the child made a soft cooing sound, reminding the Mandalorian of the responsibility on his shoulders and why he really did need the credits.

“Seorus requires visas to land in their ports,” he said, not dropping the blaster an inch. “I don’t suppose they have one.”

The deserter gave him a small helpless smile and a shrug. The Mandalorian lowered the weapon and gave a deep sigh. 

“Quarters will be cramped,” he warned. Without another word he holstered the blaster and reached down for the supplies he had dropped. The deserter smiled gratefully and turned to the clients, ushering them forward. The Mandalorian sent them ahead of him with a jerk of his helmet. It kept them in his sight as they entered the landing bay. 

The deserter spoke with the old man in a hushed tone, his voice taking on a cadence and accent that flowed too easily to be fake. The old man responded with a similar accent, but much thicker.

“He will take us? And you’re sure it’s safe?”

“He’s an honorable man,” the deserter assured them. The Mandalorian frowned inside his helmet and his chest constricted again at the overheard praise. 

He frowned for a whole new reason when he saw the elderly couple exchange worried glances after seeing his ship. _She doesn’t look that bad… at the moment,_ he thought, insulted on the _Crest_ ’s behalf. 

The deserter helped the elderly woman find a seat in the cargo bay then met the Mandalorian at the wide back entrance. 

“Thank you,” the ex-stormtrooper said, sincerity in every line of his expression. “You’re most likely saving their lives doing this. I know you probably don’t want me back on your ship. I’ll stay behind if it--”

“Put these away,” the Mandalorian held out the supplies to the ex-trooper. “I’ll prep for takeoff.” 

The deserter took the supplies a bit listlessly, looking shocked. Within a moment he recovered, and jumped to sorting the various items diligently. 

_He’s really not very good at this,_ the Mandalorian thought. _A more profiteering outlaw would have left him behind, completed the job, pocketed the whole reward, and never looked back. Maybe he really believes what he said to the old man about my honor. Unless this is a trap and he was hoping I’d leave him behind. Or he was trying to offer me the job as… as what? Charity? Repayment of a debt?_ The unease warring with his optimism made the bounty hunter’s stomach churn uncomfortably. He ignored it and hauled himself and the child up into the cockpit to begin the take off procedures. 

\--

All the preflight checks were completed and the engines were fully purged of rain-water when the Mandalorian heard footsteps on the ladder. 

“I’ve put away the supplies,” the deserter said almost shyly, sticking his head through the door. “And the passengers are settled for take-off.”

“Good,” the Mandalorian said, turning back to the controls. “Strap in,” he directed, pointing to the seat back to his left. “We need to discuss strategy.”

He heard the ex-trooper swallow nervously and shuffle into the navigator’s seat. The buckles clipped together just as the Mandalorian pushed the repulsor lever forward and the Razor Crest lifted off the landing pad. They sped up into the atmosphere without incident and jumped into hyperspace just beyond the planetary gravity well. The entire trip up the child burbled and cooed more than usual. The Mandalorian kept glancing back at the kid in his padded box, but nothing seemed amiss.

Once the white and blue swirling lines of hyperspace were passing over the view screens, the Mandalorian spun around to his new partner. The deserter was turned toward the child with his tongue out and his eyes crossed. The kid let out a chittering coo of laughter. The deserter realized quickly he was being watched and dropped the expression, sitting back up, ramrod straight and blushing a little. He looked poised to be reprimanded or maybe laughed at.

The Mandalorian was taken aback for a moment and forgot what he had meant to say. The trooper remained waiting with visibly growing apprehension on those damnably perfect features as the bounty hunter collected himself. The deserter had clearly mistook the silence for displeasure; the helmet tended to have that effect on people.

“What did you tell them-the old couple?” the Mandalorian asked when he found his train of thought again.

“Oh. Umm. That you were discreet and had no reason to love the empire,” the deserter said, his gaze shifting over to the child sitting on the third chair between them. “I didn’t tell them anything about the Asse--the child. They assumed it was because of the Great Purge.”

“How did you find this job so quickly?”

“Oh,” the deserter’s eyes darted away and down, but his head stayed perfectly straight. In a stormtrooper’s helmet he would have given nothing away with his movements or body language. “I overheard them talking to another captain. I saw an opportunity to help both of our situations.” There was tension in his voice, but the Mandalorian didn’t know what to make of that. He certainly wasn’t getting the whole story.

“You said they were refugees.”

“They are.”

“Well dressed ones,” the Mandalorian said, thinking of the man’s heavy poncho and practically brand new boots, the woman’s sophisticated layered dress and neatly styled braids beneath her rain hat. Even the small boy had smartly cut hair and a sharp collar under his coat. “Why not travel through the normal channels? The New Republic sends refugee ships to the Imperial Colonies all the time.”

“Refugee ships that are monitored by Imperials and the Guild,” the deserter said meaningfully. 

“One or both of whom could be bought off,” the Mandalorian crossed his arms.

“Not everyone born with a golden spoon in their mouth grows up to glut themselves on the rewards,” the deserter whispered bitterly, eyes on the dancing hyperspace beyond the viewport. The words didn’t sound like they were his--more like a quote--but they were said with no less feeling.

“Poetic,” the Mandalorian replied in a stiff monotone.

The deserter looked down at the floor, a frown tugging at his mouth and color rising in his cheeks. The Mandalorian searched the man’s expression and body language for any anger or indignation, but there was nothing. The man just hunched his shoulders inward and curled farther into his seat.

_If it is an act, it’s a good one,_ the bounty hunter thought.

“Seorus is part of the New Republic Protectorate,” The Mandalorian let the issue lie and moved on to the next problem at hand. “It’s all but officially under New Republic jurisdiction, but it maintains its own defenses and strict borders. We won’t be able to land in the city or any of the official ports without a visa.” 

“So we land in the wilderness?” the deserter inferred.

“They have sensor arrays set up to detect pirates landing anywhere within several miles of a major settlement. To get close enough to the capital we’ll have to land in the mountains. They’re rich in exonite.”

“Exonite like exonite cloaking technology?”

“That tech originated on Seorus," the Mandalorian nodded, "thus the threat of pirates, required visas, and the strict borders. The exonite in the rocks disrupts the sensors, creates a lot of false alarms. Standard procedure is to send a patrol to any sensor blip to investigate. We can land in the mountains, find a place to hide, wait out the search patrol, then make our way to the city over the plains.”

“How do you know all this?”

“It’s my business to know things like this. The mountains are a good place to lay low when you’re on the run,” the Mandalorian explained, turning around to fiddle with the controls. “Go tell our passengers it will be five or six hours until we reach Seorus, and they need to be ready for a trek when we arrive.”

“Roger,” the deserter replied. The Mandalorian turned his head just enough for his helmet to pick up the image of the deserter petting the top of the child’s head, before he retreated out of the cockpit. 

The Mandalorian took a deep breath and laid back in his seat, exhausted. He hit the switch to seal the cockpit door and tried to will the tension out of his body. It was a long way to Seorus and he needed to catch at least a few hours of sleep.

“Uwweh,” a coo at his feet made him jump a little. He looked down to see the child clinging to his boot.

“You ready for a nap too?” He asked. The little creature lifted its arms towards him. The Mandalorian picked up the child and settled him on the beskar breastplate, leaning back himself to get as comfortable as possible. His bunk would have to wait until the _Razor Crest_ was finally free of passengers. He drifted off to the soft huffing sounds of the child slumbering on his chest and the gentle rise and fall of the little body under his hand.


	4. The Deserter - Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a hunter is hunted and a name is revealed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously: After rescuing Corin on Tatooine and letting him go to find a new life beyond the Empire, Din was surprised when Corin returned with a potential job. Short on funds, Din agrees to transport an elderly couple and their young grandson with Corin's help to a New Republic Embassy on the well guarded planet of Seorus.

The _Razor Crest_ glided down into the Seorus mountains under minimal power and no lights. They were fortunate it was a clear night and the binary moons were bright overhead illuminating the sharp jutting plateaus of the mountains and the shining rivers that cut through them below. A soft layer of sediment at the river level had worn away gray-purple rocks to make deep caverns and overhangs under the mountain side. The Mandalorian set the _Razor Crest_ down in the most stable looking crevice he could find and powered down all the engines and instruments. 

“Everything off down here?” He asked coming to the bottom of the steps with the child clinging to his shoulder. 

“Everything,” the deserter answered, almost surprising the Mandalorian. Standing tensely in the back corner the ex-stormtrooper was easy to overlook, like he was consciously--or perhaps unconsciously--trying to be unobtrusive. The elderly man was sitting on a crate with the woman leaning against his shoulder. The little boy sat on the floor cross legged and stared up at the Mandalorian with a slightly open mouth. _A_ _curious one,_ the Mandalorian thought and ignored him. 

“Patrols will be here within the hour. The engines will be too cool by then to register on their heat sensors with any luck.”

The old man chuckled: “Not to fear, Mandalorian. Good luck brought us to you. It’s still with us. I can feel it.”

The Mandalorian shrugged off the strange superstitious talk and continued: “The patrols will probably stick around for an hour or two themselves. Then we’ll have a window of time before dawn to make our way to the outskirts of the city. We can arrange transport from there to the Embassy.” 

The Mandalorian waited a moment to see if anyone would question the plan. When no one did, he opened the weapons cabinet, selected his second favorite pistol and loaded it with a new charge pack. The whole time he felt eyes on his back making his skin itch. The child cooed softly next to his ear and the Mandalorian turned. The green child was looking down from his perch at the little boy, who had moved to stand at the Mandalorian’s elbow. At first the Mandalorian was afraid the young human was interested in the weapons, but the innocent eyes were fixed on the little green creature clinging to his beskar pauldron. 

“Can I play with your pet?” He asked.

“He’s not a pet,” the Mandalorian corrected. “He’s a kid.”

“Can I play with him anyway?”

“Aidan,” the old man reproached.

“I’ll be gentle.” The boy promised.

The Mandalorian picked up the child off his shoulder, unhooking the little clawed hands from his cloak. Holding the child out to look him square in the face he asked: “Do you want to stay here with the boy or go outside with me? It’ll be pretty boring out there.” _Not to mention dangerous._

The child hesitated, then looked down at the boy and made grabby motions towards him with his claws. 

“Alright,” the Mandalorian agreed and set the child down beside the boy. “Play nice and don’t put things in your mouth.”

The old woman chuckled, blinking her cloudy blue eyes at the two children. “At that age, you’re wasting your breath,” she warned him good naturedly. She patted the man’s arm with fondness and her eyes glazed over in reminiscence. A gold cuff around her wrist studded with red jewels showed where her sleeve rode up and it flashed in the low light. The Mandalorian frowned where no one could see his expression. 

He turned to the deserter and jerked his helmet toward the side hatch. The former trooper followed him obediently out into the crisp mountain valley air and deep shadows of their hiding place. 

“You’re familiar with these types of weapons?” He asked, holding out the blaster. 

“Yes,” the deserter replied, and took it with the same stunned expression he had accepted the supplies with. “Why are you arming me?”

“These mountains have some less than friendly wildlife. Fire only if you have to--we don’t want to draw attention, but better to be prepared than become something’s dinner.”

“You aren’t worried I’m going to shoot you in the back?”

The Mandalorian decided not to reply, just turned to stare the deserter head on with his visor. The disconcerting effect of the helmet did come in handy sometimes. Predictably, a moment later he saw a little blood drain from the deserter’s face. _Let him think of that what he will,_ the bounty hunter added to himself with a bit of mirth. “Take the north ridge and stay low,” he said, turning toward his own path. “Head back when you haven’t seen a patrol for at least half an hour.”

“Roger,” the ex-trooper answered with a sharp nod, the subtle kind that looked sharp and efficient in a helmet. With well practiced moves he checked over the borrowed blaster: the safety, the charge pack release, and the exhaust ports. Satisfied, he took off to the north at a light jog, hunching low behind the first rocky outcroppings and nearly disappearing from view. 

The Mandalorian climbed the ridge to the west of their hiding place and crouched in the brush to watch the first patrol ships passing into the valley. Like he predicted, they circled out in a grid pattern, doubling back once, before flying away again. He waited twenty minutes after the last one passed overhead before heading back to the _Razor Crest_ . He checked the passengers and the child were still safely inside and told them to start preparing to leave. The deserter showed up exactly ten minutes later, keeping low until he was securely under the overhanging rock that sheltered the _Razor Crest_. The Mandalorian had to admire diligence and the ability to follow orders.

Together the six travelers started out down the river valley toward the base of the mountains. The child rode in a satchel at the Mandalorian’s side at the lead. The old man and the boy followed behind with the woman on Corin’s arm to keep her steady at the rear.

Within an hour they could see the glittering spiral towers of the Seorus capital ahead of them between the rocky cliffs. About the base of the city were crowds of block-like cheaper structures that glowed with lights and vibrant hollo-signs. Separating the mountains and the city were several miles of open plains covered in swaying red-brown grasses. At a reasonable pace it would take the rest of the night to cross to the city outskirts. The Mandalorian worried with the elderly they wouldn’t make it before dawn. Once the sun rose they would be easy to spot on the open plains. 

To his surprise he didn’t need to impress the urgency of their travel on the old couple, they struggled on resolutely and pulled their young charge with them despite the child’s complaints of aching feet and hunger. The deserter was there the whole way, holding the woman’s arm to steady her over the rocky terrain, carrying their heavy suitcase or even the boy for hours at a time. It was still two hours from first light when they reached the plains, where the river widened out and wound like a snake away to the south around the mountains. 

_That should be the worst behind us,_ the Mandalorian thought. But the universe loved to spite him. No sooner had he felt confident enough to have such a thought than he caught a trail of condensation in the atmosphere and faint glimmer of light behind them over the mountains. Something high up in the atmosphere was reflecting the sun creeping around the planet, something descending into the mountains at a low angle. 

The Mandalorian dialed in his helmet sensors to their maximum range and just picked up a blip through the exonite interference. It was moving fast and not in a search pattern like a patrol ship, but the angle seemed off for random space debris or a meteor. 

“Even Mandalorian’s have to catch their breath,” the deserter’s voice drew his attention. “Go on ahead. We’re right behind you.” The lie was fairly apparent even without seeing the poorly concealed worry on that attractive face.

The Mandalorian disengaged his long range sensors and looked at the three passengers heading out into the tall grasses as they were told. The deserter was standing below him on the rocky hillside, watching with a frown.

“What is it?” The ex-stormtrooper asked.

“I don’t know,” the Mandalorian replied, coming down to join the deserter. “At best, it was a meteorite. Regardless the patrols will return because of it. There’s a chance they could spot us either on their way out or back. We’re too exposed on the plains but we’re too far from decent cover in the mountains to turn back.”

“So if it’s good luck, it’s a meteorite. And if it’s bad luck?” the deserter asked, looking toward where the Mandalorian had been focused though his naked eyes wouldn’t be able to make out much of anything at this distance.

“Bad luck: it’s a bounty hunter coming for the child.” Both of their gazes, blue eyes and dark visor, looked down at the satchel hanging from the Mandalorian’s shoulder and the child quietly slumbering within.

“What do we do?” the deserter asked. His hands clenched and unclenched nervously at his side waiting for a response. 

The Mandalorian considered for a long moment, absently stroking one of the child’s long ears. 

“We keep going,” he answered at length. “If I think we’re being followed I’ll break off, try to lead them away. You’ll take the family into the city and see the job through. I’ll catch up with you there.”

“So you’ll take on the hunter alone? What if he’s more than you can handle?”

“Then that will be my problem,” the Mandalorian replied, already walking away after their passengers. If the deserter gave any come-back it was too soft for the Mandalorian to pick up over his own footsteps in the loose gravel. 

The small group pushed on into the grassy plains as dawn began to lighten the sky and make long shadows of the mountains behind them and the city towers ahead. The Mandalorian took the rear now with the deserter leading at the front. Within thirty minutes the gentle thrum of the patrol ship engines reached them and three small shapes started across the sky over the plains from the city. The Mandalorian and the deserter helped the elderly couple hunker down in the tall grass as the ships passed, not directly overhead, but too close for comfort. For long breathless minutes they waited to see if any of the ships turned back. When none did they breathed a sigh of relief and picked up again with renewed motivation. 

The Mandalorian trailed behind though as they continued to push forward, more than half his attention focused on looking back at the mountains. His vigilance paid off when he caught brief flashes of red amid the gray boulders of a northern valley: blaster-shots. 

_Someone is defending against the mountain predators,_ he thought and felt his heart sink. _Bad luck it is_.

He turned to see the deserter was looking back at him. Something about the Mandalorian’s body language must have given it away, because the deserter’s shoulders fell and he gave a solemn nod. It seemed nothing more needed to be said. 

The Mandalorian turned from their path, cutting back diagonally across the plains. He could make out the elderly couple questioning the deserter but he didn’t hear the response. In the satchel at his side the child cooed a mournful sound like a goodbye and craned around to watch the deserter and the family disappear among the grass.

There was the smallest of ridges, a gentle swell of the otherwise flat land. The Mandalorian climbed it and knelt down, taking the pulse rifle from his back and loading it with a charge from his boot holster. Engaging the scope he looked back towards the mountain, scanning across the landscape. 

It was a slow and tedious endeavor, scanning constantly across bare rock and monotonous grass, searching for the barest hits of an unseen enemy. The Mandalorian bent all his attention and single mindedness to the task, putting everything else in his mind aside. It was what made him such a good bounty hunter; patience, rigorous patience. 

He knew the hunter creeping after him would make a mistake and he would catch it. His mind didn’t linger on what would happen if he failed, if he misjudged and thought his opponent slower or faster than they were, if his opponent spotted him first and shot him instead… The Mandalorian considered only where his visual search pattern should shift next and what he was seeing through the scope. That was how he caught his first glimpse of the approaching enemy hunter. 

It moved fast, feline in agility and slinking out between the rocks on all fours. It leapt with one powerful bound from the last bit of rocky cover into the grassy fields where it became only an out of place sway of grass as it traveled over the plains. 

_Dank farrik, I’m not gonna get a clear shot on it. This will come down to a melee,_ the Mandalorian thought.

He watched through his scope, following each sway of grass that broke the pattern of the winds. It helped that the hunter was moving fast, making up for their head start, and the progressing dawn was giving greater light to see by. Minutes ticked by as the hunter grew closer and closer. The Mandalorian felt sweat rolling down his forehead and his muscles protesting the unchanging position after hours of walking. He shifted them as subtly as he could, trying to keep himself ready for what was approaching without making enough motion to give away his position. 

The hunter didn’t cut a straight line, but approached at an angle. If it continued it would eventually cross the path the deserter and the family took. The trail of broken grass and trampled ground would be easy to follow in the daylight. The Mandalorian realized if he didn’t want the hunter following the deserter he would need to cut the hunter off before it crossed the path. He counted out the ranges in his head, estimating from the few glimpses of movement he got how fast his opponent was moving. 

The Mandalorian put the rifle on his back and slunk forward into the swaying brown grass, bent at the waist and knees, head ducked. He picked his course and didn’t look up again, trusting his instinctive sense of direction enough not to risk raising his head. A shiny beskar helmet peaking over the bushy grass seed tops would be a dead give away in the early morning sun.

His sense of direction told him he must be getting close. His blood was pounding in his ears with the anticipation and sweat was already breaking across his skin under his armor. Carefully he lifted the child’s satchel over his head. The kid made a soft aborted coo then fell silent when the Mandalorian put his finger over his visor where his lips would be.

The Mandalorian stopped and turned up the noise sensors in his helmet, listening for any out of place sounds. All around him the grass rustled like an endlessly crashing wave, noises of morning insects were rising like a soft buzz, and somewhere a ways away a bird was starting to sing. Beyond that the whir of repulsor engines was growing from the direction of the mountains, faint even in the enhanced hearing of his helmet.

_Dank farrik!_ The Mandalorian cursed silently. The patrol ships were on their way back. His hand moved from the blaster holster on his thigh to the knife in his boot. He couldn’t risk a shot drawing the attention of the passing ships and he couldn’t wait or risk losing the hunter, so the vibroblade would have to do.

_There!_ A crunch and a clink of metal on metal that was not a part of the grassy plains drew his attention. His helmet zeroed in on the direction of the noise, tracking it slowly across his HUD.

The Mandalorian slid the vibroknife from his boot and set down the child’s satchel at the same time.

On no cue that he could identify, just an instinctual sense of timing, he leapt up into a full tilt run. He shot across the grass toward the unfamiliar sounds, stealth abandoned and speed his only defense now. 

He was on the other hunter almost before he knew it. The hunched creature on all fours appeared in the shifting grasses right before him, looking up at the approaching Mandalorian with two bulging eyes and darting beady pupils. It hissed a scream from the wide mouth of sharp teeth below its flat nose before the Mandalorian slammed into its side with one armored shoulder. 

Both of them were bowled over by the collision, rolling into the grass overtop of each other. The hunter recovered first, twisting uncannily in the air and coming down on all fours. It gripped the earth with prehensile feet, then launched itself at the still prone Mandalorian. It latched onto the beskar plackart and chest-plate with its feet. One of its hands grabbed the Mandalorian’s fist which held the vibroknife, and the other reached for a blaster on its own belt. 

The Mandalorian recovered himself as the strong grip closed around his weapon. He got ahold of the hunter’s gun by the barrel, forcing it away from himself. Getting his feet on the ground the Mandalorian managed to push off, rolling the two of them over so he could pin the hunter down with the weight of his body and armor. The Mandalorian bashed the hand holding the blaster, managing to send the weapon flying out of the hunter’s grip into the grass. The hunter’s feet, still gripping the beskar plates, pushed the Mandalorian back with immense strength. The armored human stumbled, but managed to use the momentum to get upright again. 

As soon as the hunter was free of the weight overtop him, it rolled over and scrambled towards the dropped blaster. The Mandalorian flipped his vibroknife in the air, freeing his right arm to shoot out the grapple line from his vambrace. He caught the knife in the opposite hand as the line wrapped around the hunter’s feet, dragging the ankles together and pulling the creature towards the Mandalorian. The hunter clawed at the dirt, resisting the pull of the retracting line. 

Realizing it was a contest of strength he couldn’t win, the Mandalorian cut the line with the vibroknife in his off-hand. The hunter was wrenched forward by its own arms when the resistance suddenly disappeared. It scrambled forward on hands and hobbled knees toward the blaster in the grass, grabbing desperately. The hunter closed its hands on the grip of the weapon and rolled over, raising to shoot. At the same moment the Mandalorian descended on him from above. The prehensile feet, still tied together by the grapple line closed around the hand it had seen the knife in before to ward off the attack, but that hand was empty. The failed defensive move opened up the hunter’s side to the Mandalorian’s off-hand. The Mandalorian drove the blade into the creature’s side and up in a lethal slice that ended with the knife embedded in the base of the creature’s neck, a deep wound winding around it’s barrel-like torso. The blaster dropped from the hunter’s limp hand and the blunging eyes, still wide open, dimmed with the last wet strangled breath of the creature. 

The Mandalorian pulled his knife back and stumbled onto his feet. He backed away from the body, breathing hard under the helmet. 

Overhead the whirring of the patrol ship engines was getting louder and louder. 

The Mandalorian went to duck towards the untrodden grass to get some cover but stopped. 

Movement caught his eye near the edge of the trodden grass. The child struggled out of the tall stalks where the hunter had first been knocked over. Dropped on the flattened red flora and claylike earth was a blinking device, a rectangular box with two wires in a triangle coming from one short side. The red light in the center blinked at long intervals with slow soft beeps as the child picked up the tracking fob with a curious coo.

“It wasn’t after you,” the Mandalorian said. He dropped to a knee over the dead hunter, patting down the creature’s clothing and belt for pockets. He pulled out a pouch of credits and a bounty puck. He ignited the puck’s display with hands still shaking from adrenaline.

“ _Dank farrik!”_ He cussed at what he saw.

The whirring of the patrol ship engines changed pitch and the Mandalorian turned to watch. Two of the ships banked and began a slow circle around parallel to the city, towards the direction the deserter was leading the family in their desperate bid for safe-haven. 

“ _Dank farrik_ ,” the Mandalorian said under his breath. He dashed forward, grabbing up the child and the tracking fob together. He ran across the plains, racing the ships to their quarry. His legs burned from the hard exertion after the trek out of the mountains the long stillness of his vigil. But the Mandalorian pushed through the pain.

He topped a short rise and found his goal. The old man and woman were bent down in the grass with the young boy sheltered between them, their heads swiveling around to follow the ships that closed in on their position like circling sharks. The deserter stood over them with the borrowed blaster out in his hand. He spotted the Mandalorian approaching over the grassland and his bright blue eyes searched the armored figure with obvious concern that melted away into an expression of relief.

“The good luck followed you it seems,” The ex-stormtrooper said with a bitter smile as the Mandalorian came up beside him. The note of guilt and defeat in his voice made the Mandalorian’s stomach clench with a whole new sense of unease. He had the urge to usher the stormtrooper down with the elderly couple and cover them with his own body like a beskar shell. It wouldn’t work of course. He threw off the ridiculous thought.

“I don’t believe in luck,” the Mandalorian growled back, setting the child down to free both his hands. He took the madly beeping tracking fob from the kid’s little claws and stuffed it in his belt pocket roughly. Then he drew the pulse rifle and primed it. 

“We were so close, so close to going home,” the old woman lamented and held the child closer to her chest, stroking his hair. The sleeve of her dress fell back, revealing the gold cuff and one of the red gems winking like a heartbeat in the gloom of her shadow. Faster and faster they flashed.

The patrol ships circled in tighter, separating to pin the humans on the ground between them, and closing to only a hundred feet or less. Their repulsor engines whined and wind roared, throwing up loose brown grass and dust in great clouds around them. A loudspeaker crackled to life from one of the craft.

_“Put down your weapons and surrender.”_

“Hold,” the Mandalorian said to his partner softly. He could see the ex-stormtrooper trembling slightly but his arms didn’t drop.

Rappel lines extended from both of the small craft and pairs of armored soldiers slid down them to land in the grass a moment later. The four soldiers closed in from opposing sides, dark blue helmets alight with three glowing sensors each, like bulbous metallic three eyed heads. The Mandalorian’s gaze panned slowly around the field though he only let his helmet turn marginally, cataloging all their positions in his mind, scrambling for a plan of defense as the ranks closed around them. Four on one, he could take those odds but not with non-combatants to protect.

“You should have taken the child and fled,” the deserter said over his shoulder, his voice thick with some emotion the Mandalorian couldn’t decipher--or perhaps it was just too many emotions bleeding together. “You didn’t have to come back for us.”

Over the whirring of the patrol ship engines a new sound built, higher in pitch and growing quickly louder it screamed as it approached. The Mandalorian tore his eyes from the soldier’s around him as their helmets tipped up. Above them another larger ship descended out of the sky. Its glossy chrome plating gleamed in the morning sun, nearly blinding to look at. 

The advancing soldiers stopped, clearly taken aback by the strange ship’s arrival. 

Clear and crisp, a calm voice rang out from the new ship overhead: _“All parties are to stand down by order of Senator Jaslin Cadrail of Seswenna of the Galactic Senate of the New Republic.”_

Like dogs called to heel, the soldiers backed away slowly. The Mandalorian remained tense and alert.

The patrol ships powered down and dropped to land on the grassy plains. The shimmering larger ship landed between them, making a half moon of ships around the six travelers. A double doored hatch opened wide on the side and a boarding ramp lowered smooth as silk to the flattened grass. Smartly dressed guardsman appeared at the top of the ramp flanking a young clean-shaven man in long red robes. He wore an elaborate orange headdress of flowers and dangling beads. A golden cuff on one of his wrists caught the Mandalorian’s eye. It was embedded with red jewels that glowed with a fast heart-beat like pulse.

The Senator started down the ramp at a stately pace. Some excitement got the better of him half way toward the travelers, and he was pushing forward through the grass almost at a jog the last of the way. The elderly couple with the boy between them stepped forward to meet the senator, oblivious to the tension that remained in their guides. 

“Grandmother!” The Senator cried happily, pulling the old woman into his arms eagerly, all pretense and caution abandoned. The old grandmother sobbed with relief.

The Senator’s guards at least didn’t forget their duties. They drew their weapons smoothly as they approached, fanning out in a wide perimeter to keep both the deserter and the Mandalorian within sight. The border patrol soldiers closed in behind them with weapons raised as well. A fifth soldier emerged from the transport ship with white markings on his pauldrons. He moved to stand beside a gold-capped member of the Senator’s guard who stood back giving silent orders with hand signals. The two captains conferred in whispers at the edges of the tense confrontation going on around the Senator’s happy familial reunion. 

The Mandalorian decided, in the face of overwhelming odds, a show of good faith would get him farther. He returned the rifle to his back cautiously, hiding his careful assessment of the new threats behind his visor. The deserter took the Mandalorian’s cue and put his blaster at his side, but did not drop it completely. The Mandalorian was close enough to see, with a note of approval, the safety was still off.

The field was silent for a long minute as the small family huddled together, with tears on their cheeks but wide smiles on their faces. The Senator finally gathered his composure and stepped forward toward the rugged pair of men held at blaster point.

“I am Senator Jaslin Cadrail,” he introduced himself with a stately bow that was entirely out of place in the open wilderness, “and you have my thanks for bringing these members of my family back to me. We have been separated for long years since the Civil War drove my father and I apart.”

“They were very brave to defect from the remnants of the Empire,” the deserter replied and gave a stiff bow in return to the Senator.

“Captain,” the Senator called forward the armored border patrol soldier with the white pauldron. “These men acted on my behalf when they entered your airspace. They are to be returned to their ship and allowed safe passage out of this system.”

Before the Captain could respond the head of the Senator’s own guard spoke up, stepping forward swiftly so his gold cape fluttered. 

“My lord,” he said smoothly, “I regret to inform you that one of these men faces accusations of far greater offenses than smuggling or trespassing. This man,” he motioned to the deserter, “is Corin Valentis.”

The old woman at her grandson’s elbow gave a short gasp. “Valentis? Sia Motti’s…” she whispered and trailed off as she covered her mouth. 

The Mandalorian looked sidelong at his partner, letting his helmet appear motionless to anyone watching. The deserter’s face remained impassive but his head dropped and his gaze fell to the dirt under his feet.

“Captain Corin Velantis of the Imperial Stormtrooper Corps,” the guardsman went on, sneering at the deserter with disain, “wanted by the New Republic War Tribunal for numerous war crimes including participation in genocide campaigns, illegal experimentation on sentients, abuse of authority, and treason against Empress Alira of Seswenna and Dremach.”

“Do you also come seeking asylum, Captain Valentis?” The Senator asked kindly, taking the apparent surprise in stride. “If I speak at your hearing, the War Tribunal could be persuaded to pardon your past. The New Republic knows the great weight of fear the Empire used to subjugate so many.” 

The deserter, Corin, was already shaking his head before the Senator finished speaking.

“Your influence would be wasted, Senator,” he told the politician, his voice flat. “As if my family name were not damning enough, I was on Dalathea.”

Behind his helmet the Mandalorian blinked, nonplussed. The name meant nothing to him, but the Senator’s expression crumpled with defeat. The head of his guardsman all but snarled, lips pulled back from his teeth in disgust and the crowd of soldiers tensed. The Senator clasped his hands together and looked down with disappointment. 

“I see,” he said, somberly. “I am deeply sorry. It is a true injustice that by returning my family to me, you will have to pay the price for your own.”

“Just bad luck,” Corin muttered, more to himself than to anyone else. 

The border patrol captain gave a signal to his soldiers. Two of the blue armored men closed in behind Corin, binders at the ready.

“Wait.” 

The Mandalorian spoke up, voice soft but commanding. Everyone turned to him in surprise, as if they could have forgotten a warrior in shining beskar was standing among them. 

“The New Republic still recognizes the Bounty Hunters Guild. By contract you cannot remand a bounty until the hunter has been paid. Corin Valentis is my bounty and in my custody.” He removed from his belt the frantically beeping tracking fob that flatlined to a high pitched whine when pointed toward the ex-stormtrooper. In his periphery, the Mandalorian saw Corin: stock still, every muscle tensed, his chin tipped down and his eyes wide with surprise. The Senator looked up at the Mandalorian with new interest and a spark of mischief in his eyes. 

“So I see,” he said, pulling back his shoulders and lifting his chin, making the beaded headdress clink and sway. “How grievously I misjudged you, bounty hunter, thinking you had come nobly to Seorus to deliver safe my loved ones. But you are just another thug. Captain!” He turned back to the soldier. “Return the bounty hunter and his captive to the hunter’s ship and see him on his way.” Without waiting for the Captain to protest he spun on the spot. “This way Grandmother. It is too long since you have been home.” 

As the Senator led his reunited family away, the Mandalorian took his lent blaster from Corin’s lax grip and flicked the safety back on. He lifted the child from where the little one had been hidden against his leg and tucked him against one side, steering Corin by his shoulder with the other hand.

Following the Senator’s commands the border patrol soldiers loaded the Mandalorian, Corin, and the child into one of their ships and flew them back into the mountains to the _Razor Crest’s_ hidden alcove in tense silence. The Mandalorian kept a firm hand on Corin’s shoulder until he pushed the unprotesting man into the navigator’s seat in the cockpit, only letting him go long enough to climb the ladder. 

Neither of them spoke until the child was settled in his padded box and the engines were priming. The Mandalorian pulled out the bounty puck and placed it on the control panel to his left, initiating the holo-display. Corin’s face, a bit younger, with shorter hair and a blank expression, hovered under a nameplate and a staggeringly large numerical figure.

“A high price,” the Mandalorian said conversationally. “No listed client.”

“No.” Corin breathed a heavy sigh. “No. There wouldn’t be.”

“That hunter won’t be the last.”

“No. But I thought I’d have more time.”

“Did you know you were wanted by the New Republic as well?”

“Yes.”

“And you took this job anyway?”

For a long moment Corin was quiet. The Mandalorian turned halfway to look back. The former stormtrooper was gazing out the viewscreen, head against the wall behind him and arms limp at his sides. 

“I saw a chance and I wanted to do something good before….” Corin’s head tipped forward as he trailed off. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry it put the child and you in danger, put the job and the Cadrail’s in danger. I’m sorry...” 

“The boy,” the Mandalorian said, cutting through the apologies, “what was his name?”

“Aidan,” Corin answered, confused.

“I suppose he’ll have a better life on Seswenna than in the Imperial Colonies. Less chance of ending up in the Stormtrooper Corps.” The Mandalorian didn’t look back to see if his words had the intended effect, but Corin did fall silent. The Mandalorian hit the next few switches and fired up the repulsors. The _Razor Crest_ shuddered as it rose through the atmosphere, leaving Seorus behind. 

The planet was just out of sight when he heard the shifting of fabric behind him. He turned his head to see Corin lifting up the child into his lap. The kid cooed happily and burrowed into Corin’s shirt, wrapped in the ex-stormtrooper’s gentle embrace. The Mandalorian let himself smile behind his helmet at the sight. The navicomputer beeped and he pushed the lever to send them hurling into hyperspace.

* * *

The _Razor Crest_ touched down back on Berilia several hours later. The main cargo bay ramp opened slowly, letting the putrid stench of the planet fill the hold. The Mandalorian held in a sigh, having, again, forgotten how terribly wretched Berilia was. Corin wrinkled his nose a bit at the smell then sneezed loudly. The child burbled a laugh from the Mandalorian’s arms. 

They walked down the covered tunnel to the grated bridge over the culvert together in silence, stopping before the end of the awning where they had parted ways first a little over a day ago. 

“Here,” the Mandalorian said, pressing the blaster he had lent Corin on Seorus and a small pouch in the deserter’s hand. 

“W-what?” Corin looked at the offered gifts, fumbling them in his surprise. 

“That’s half of what the hunter was carrying on him.”

Corin opened the pouch to see a few credit chips rattling inside. He shook his head and held out both the money and the blaster to the Mandalorian saying: “I can’t take these. If that’s half, then your take couldn’t have even covered the fuel. It was my job, I hired you as the pilot, and you gave up any chance of reward by saving me. I can’t take this.” 

It was all too easy to read the guilt in those expressive blue eyes. Reluctantly the Mandalorian took the bag of credits offered back to him, hating that he needed them and hating that Corin would never take them either way.

“Keep the blaster, at least. I can’t leave you undefended with enemies on your tail.”

“Is that a Mandalorian thing or just honorable generosity?” Corin asked, turning the weapon over in his hand. The grip was worn down in the clear pattern of a rough grip, chipped on the butt end and dinged on the trigger guard. It had been the Mandalorian’s constant companion for a long time before he acquired his current piece. Something warmed his chest when he thought that it might protect Corin after they parted ways this time.

When no answer to his question came, Corin gave a relenting sigh and tucked the blaster into his waistband. He looked up to meet the Mandalorian’s black visor with bright blue eyes brimming with sincerity. 

“You thanked me,” he reminded the Mandalorian, “when I helped you escape on Tatooine, but the truth is you were helping _me_ escape too. I’m eternally grateful.” Corin lifted his hand, palm out to the bounty hunter to shake.

The Mandalorian reached forward and took hold of Corin’s forearm, his vambrace slapping into Corin’s grip. Corin squeezed the offered arm briefly in the Mandalorian gesture of friendship.

“Take care,” the Mandalorian said, his voice soft. 

“You as well. And look after the kid, too.” They both looked down at the somber little creature who watched the exchange with large brown eyes. “He’s lucky to have someone like you.” Corin flashed his brilliantly handsome smile at the pair, though the expression was tinged with pain. He dropped the Mandalorian’s arm and stepped out into the rain. The Mandalorian and the child watch the man disappearing into the gray drizzle until he turned around a far corner out of sight. 

The child made a soft mournful cooing sound. 

_Yeah,_ the Mandalorian agreed with the child silently, _I liked him too._ He shook himself out of useless thoughts about bright blue eyes and that last smile. The Mandalorian hoisted the child a little higher and turned around, back into the tunnel toward the _Razor Crest._ It was time they got a move on. He still needed to find a job that would actually pay and soon. It might mean turning to old allies he would rather have avoided. Maybe some of that good luck would stick around though, maybe...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y’all! You KNOW that’s not the last Din and Corin have seen of each other, right? Haha! 
> 
> Interesting fact: I originally wrote the Senator as female and then changed it much later on. I altered almost nothing about the description, characterization or even the name. Would you have guessed? I was just musing on gender roles in Star Wars. Let me know if you have a thought about it.


	5. The Sacrifice - Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Corin has polite chats with Karga and Moff Gideon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously: After escaping a bounty hunter looking for Corin and arrest by the New Republic on Seorus Din and Corin parted ways in the Port of Berillia. But the jaws of Moff Gideon's machinations begin to close around them both, drawing them back to where it all began... 
> 
> Warning: Abstract descriptions of torture and brief talk of needles and injections. Karga really isn’t a good person and shows it in this chapter. Also the whole Navarro square scene from the Reckoning but with Corin.

Corin came to consciousness in a haze. The world was spinning and everything he heard was too loud. An engine was thrumming, converters pinging with a high pitched sound that rang like his skull was a struck bell. The deep vibrations of the spinning generator and groans of metal were like earthquakes in his bones. Corin cracked his eyes for a moment but the lights were blinding, like stabbing needles in his eyes. He shut them again with a groan and rolled away from the light. 

Big mistake. Moving only made him nauseous and set the world spinning faster.

The engine sound started to slow and wind down as the vehicle landed.

_Thank the stars,_ he thought with enough relief he could cry.

His memory was confused and disjointed. He was struggling to think through the pain lancing through his skull--struggling to panic against the heavy feeling of his limbs--struggling to recall where he was and why.

_..._

_“Let me buy you a drink,” offered a woman with rose pink skin and spines across her hair-less striped scalp. She smiled prettily and cocked her hips. Corin stumbled over the words to tell her he wasn’t interested…_

...

Boots on rattling metal grates echoed in the metallic place he was lying. He became aware that his cheek was pressed against rough, cold metal and his limbs were at odd angles. His hands were twisted around behind his back and something was tightly constricting his wrists. The boots became louder, each step like bombs dropping, coming closer and closer…

_…_

_“All alone, no Mando to protect you now,” those pink lips smiled thinly. Corin remembered thinking there was something hungry about that expression._

...

“Awake?” A voice asked, making him flinch. It was familiar but… “Lucky me. I won’t have to carry you into town.”

_..._

_“Good thing we insisted on two tracking fobs. I told Groz he was getting slow, but I figured he could at least take care of one ex-buckethead.” The woman’s pink lips were moving but Corin’s brain was having a hard time making sense of the words. He was focused on the electrical burn scars he could see on her neck, a ring of them, like a collar._

...

“Up, Valentis,” the voice, the familiar female voice said. A thin but ripcord strong hand closed around his arm and wrenched him forward. Corin struggled to his feet, swaying and dizzy. He tried to steady himself with his hands out of instinct. The movement pulled his bruised wrists against the restraints keeping his hands behind his back.

“I--I don’t....” His tongue was having trouble forming around words and what little he stuttered out was slurred.

“Walk,” the voice commanded, leading him with a firm grip on his arm.

Corin blinked his eyes open, squinting against the lights. He stumbled forwards, still hazy and disoriented. The lights only got brighter with the sounds of a hatch opening and a ramp. A smell hit him, sulfurous and sharp mixed with ash and sweat.

_Navarro,_ he thought. _I’m on Navarro._ The panic that induced was slow to onset, but it made him blink faster and struggle to shake off the fog in his mind. Shuffling and tripping across the hot gravel, it all started to clear up. He remembered his day working at the shipping yards of Berilia, getting a hot meal in a cantina, the woman who approached him and the drink she pressured into his hands… it got significantly fuzzier from there. He remembered very clearly realizing that she was a bounty hunter that had followed them from Seorus. Apparently the hunter the Mandalorian had killed hadn’t been working alone. He had tried to fight her but whatever was in the drink she gave him was already addling his mind and destroying his coordination. The last thing he could remember with any clarity was thinking he needed to run but getting turned around heading for the door. 

By the time Corin had figured out how he had come to be stumbling over the Navarro lava flats the bounty hunter was dragging him up to the city entrance where two familiar armored and helmed figures were lazily standing guard. 

“Chain code,” one of the stormtroopers demanded. 

“I work for the Guild.”

“Chain code.”

“I don’t answer to you bucket head!”

“Chain code.”

“Shove it.” _Bzaap!_

Corin jumped violently when her blaster went off, never having seen her draw it.

“Hey--”

_Bzap-Bzaap!_

Two blasts of plasma cut off the second stormtrooper as the bounty hunter shot him through the chest twice.

“Let’s go,” she growled, hand around Corin’s arm tightening. She dragged him through the gate and ducked down a back alley the first chance she got. Corin struggled to keep pace. His mind was clearing but his body was still not cooperating. He found he had to keep his sight down on the ground to avoid tripping and landing on his face. The bounty hunter turned several times pulling him along roughly before she shoved him through a door into a shadowy warehouse building. A desk was set up amid walls of crates. Two Nickto and a helmed indeterminate humanoid stood around the room with blaster rifles across their chests. A middle aged dark-skinned human man with close cut black hair and a beard tinged with white sat behind the desk. Greef Karga looked haggard but he put on a good facade of joviality. 

“Hyacinth,” he said, a shadow of a boisterous greeting. “You return again, and victorious I see.”

The bounty hunter shoved Corin forward roughly, then pushed down on her captive’s shoulder before kicking the back of his legs. He dropped to his knees on the duracrete hard with a bitten off hiss of pain.

“What brings you out to this arm of the galaxy? Where’s Groz?”

The pink skinned alien sauntered forward and flopped into the chair on the near side of the table across from the Head of the Bounty Hunter’s Guild. She put her feet up and rolled her eyes. “Picked up a bounty in the Expansion Region that brought us all the way out here. Figured I’d drop the package off where it was most convenient. As for Groz, obviously, he was slowing me down,” she said with a smirk. 

“Obviously,” Karga answered, clearly not convinced. “A sad day to lose a veteran of the Guild.”

“He lost the puck with him too.”

“Cin, my dear,” Karga shook his head. “I’ll have to dock you for that.” 

“With the payout on this lousy bucket-head, that fine won’t even be a dent.”

Karga stood up from his seat, moving to a terminal further back in the warehouse to look up Corin’s bounty details in the registry. The bounty in question let his head drop in defeat.

_So that’s all I am now,_ he thought, _a paycheck to someone; like a sack of meat bought and sold. But what was I really before? A stormtrooper? That hasn’t meant much in five years, if it ever meant anything but ‘flesh-droid’... or ‘murderer’. A plastoid meat container with a gun to be aimed at a target like a missile. I never amounted to much then and here I am, fallen father still. This isn’t bad luck, it’s justice -- all the terrible things I’ve done and all my failures. I was riding on my meager allotment of borrowed good luck and it has finally run out. I never did anything good to deserve it in the first place._

An image blossomed in his mind of a dark haired young human boy in a raincoat crouched down beside a tiny green creature with large floppy ears. They were passing a leather ball, sharing a makeshift game of their own imagining, huddled in the back corner of the _Razor Crest_ cargo hold.

_“...he’ll have a better life…”_ a soft voice from the past echoed in his mind.

_Maybe one or two good things,_ he had to admit. _I saved an innocent child, reunited a family, met a good man…_ Corin’s heart stuttered in his chest when he thought of the Mandalorian. The image of the beskar clad figure in the somber helmet swam painfully clear in his vision. Maybe once he’d seen that visor and thought it could be a specter of death. But now, after everything, he could only see the kind and sincere man the armor was wrapped around, someone apart from the myth of what a Mandalorian was supposed to be.

He could hear Karga’s footsteps returning and the clicking of credit chips being counted out on the table over the congratulations from the man’s lips. 

_I hope the Mandalorian and the child are safe, wherever they are. I hope they're together,_ he thought with a twist of painful longing in his chest.

“You know,” Hyacinth said, pulling the credits across the table. “I should really thank Groz for getting himself gutted by that Mandalorian; makes the pay, twice as sweet.”

“What Mandalorian?” Karga’s voice, for the first time, had a note of actual interest in it. Corin’s head snapped up before he could stop himself, and his eyes met Karga’s for a brief moment. He felt the blood drain from his face. 

“You didn’t mention that before.” Karga said, brow furrowed.

“Didn’t seem relevant,” Hyacinth said obliviously with a shrug. “He’s all yours. Bye bye pretty boy,” she twiddled her fingers in a suggestive wave as she passed Corin’s frozen form on her way out. Corin heard the door shut behind the bounty hunter. Karga gave a motion to one of his men who disappeared behind Corin’s back. A moment later he heard a deadbolt click shut, sealing the room.

One of the Nickto hauled Corin up off his knees and shoved him into the chair across from Karga. The man leaned over the table with a very serious expression, any friendly facade dispelled.

“It seems,” he said carefully to Corin, “we have a mutual acquaintance. Now, there’s a high price on your head, but I’m a reasonable guy. I’m willing to make a deal with you, Valentis, because right now there’s something--someone--I want a lot more than _you._ ” Greef Karga moved around the table and sat on it casually beside Corin. The imperial deserter resolutely kept his gaze on the scratched and stained table top. Karga leaned in, almost in a friendly manner, “I’ll see you go free if you tell me everything you know about the Mandalorian, who he’s traveling with, and where to find him.” 

Corin felt his heart racing frantically against his breastbone. He tried to still the tremble in his lips when he looked up to meet Karga’s gaze.

“I’m not telling you anything,” he said, proud that even if his voice was rough, it did not waver.

“Not now,” Karga said with a shrug. “But I’m going to give my men a few minutes with you. We’ll see if that changes your mind.” 

Corin's eyes flickered around the room at the grinning Nickto and the impassive helmet of the third thug, a shiver going down his spine and blood draining from his face. Karga stood up with a sigh, almost like he regretted what he was about to do. Corin didn’t fall for it. He swallowed thickly and tried to slow his shallow panicking breathing. Karga’s footsteps were barely fading when a sharp clawed hand grabbed onto Corin’s shoulder and was shoved against the desk, face first. The other thugs closed in around him and Corin couldn’t hold back the small whimper that escaped his lips. He knew what followed was going to hurt. 

_I won’t!_ Corin resolved. _I can’t! The last action of my wretched life will not be to endanger the Mandalorian and the child. I won’t tell them anything._

* * *

Corin had taken beatings before. Many. Too many to count over too many years. Nothing like what Karga’s men had in store for him. They were inventive and cruel, and they seemed to be making sport of it. Corin screamed himself hoarse, when he had air to scream. Each torture he endured seemed to excite his captors more, the sheer challenge of trying to break him becoming more and more interesting as he denied them again and again with his silence. 

They continued all night. He could tell from the drop in temperature. Nights on Navarro were cold. The morning came and the heat began to rise in the unventilated warehouse. The smell of mixed blood, piss, and sweat filled the stifling air. Corin breathed heavily past the ache in his ribs, the pain that wracked his body, the aftershocks and spasms that ripped through him with fresh waves of agony. 

“This doesn’t have to continue,” Karga said softly in his ear. “All you have to do is tell me where the Mandalorian and the bounty are.”

Corin winced and choked through a sob, shuddering at the new pain it caused him. 

“Just leave them alone,” he whispered through split, bleeding lips. Red tinged saliva dripped in long strands towards his lap. “Let them live in peace.” 

The desk creaked and groaned as Karga leaned back and sighed heavily. 

“I understand,” he said, disappointedly. “See if you can get anything else out of him, then throw what’s left in carbonite. It doesn’t need to be pretty. The client didn’t seem too interested in getting him back alive.” 

Corin choked on his panic as Karga got up and retreated out of the warehouse again. The thugs closed in around him, conversing in mixed Huttese dialects what tortures they would try next--or how they would kill him; Corin wasn’t sure. 

A blast ripped through the warehouse and daylight streamed in behind Corin. His torturer’s scrambled for weapons and roared in anger as red blaster fire lit up the room, mowing them down in a horizontal hailstorm of plasma. Boots pounded on the duracrete and white figures swarmed into the room on either side of Corin.

“TK-109 to Base,” one of them said into a comm unit as he approached Corin. “Confirmed. We have TK-113 in custody. Preparing for transport to base.” The stormtrooper removed a hypospray from his belt. 

“No, no, NO!” Corin protested weakly, pulling at the binders around his wrists heedless of the pain in his broken bones. 

The stormtrooper reached for his neck with the hypospray and depressed the applicator without hesitation. 

Then the pain, the stench, the warehouse, the world, went mercifully black for Corin and he dropped into oblivion.

* * *

Corin didn’t know how long he was a captive in the Imperial base on Navarro. He wasn’t even entirely sure he was still on Navarro. 

What he did know was that he had spent time in a bacta tank. He remembered blearily choking on the breathing tube in his throat and feeling the gelatinous liquid closing over his head. When the droids pulled him out and he blinked off of the drugged haze, he had grabbed one by the manipulator arm.

“Why am I alive?” he had asked. 

There was no response.

What he did know was that the Moff, the man in charge of the operation, the Governor’s unnamed new partner in the scattered and divided remnants of the Empire, was a man worth fearing. Perhaps 50 or 60 years old, graying hair, dark skin, sagging face and a small moustache that twitched with his mirthless smirk. He sat across the table from Corin in the interrogation room in his black armor and Moff’s regalia appraising Corin like he was a useful tool or a droid.

“Why am I alive? Corin had asked.

The Moff’s smirk grew into a thin smile, and he stifled a chuckle. Behind Corin’s head a rising _whaoo whaoo whaoo_ signaled the IT-0 interrogation droid’s arrival. Corin tried to pull back, but the cuffs on the chair arms held him down. He screamed, but it did no good.

If there was a response, Corin didn’t remember it through the haze of the drugs. Over and over he surfaced out of the delirium, wondering why he was answering the questions of these officers. Over and over… They asked about the Mandalorian, about the Asset, about the ship the _Razor Crest_ , about the weapons onboard, about what he had seen and heard, every word of every conversation he could remember. Every time he surfaced from the drugs Corin bit back the answers and shook himself violently, raging against the restraints. 

_No!_ He thought--or maybe he screamed?-- _I can’t tell them. I can’t tell them anything! No! Don’t make me! The one good piece of luck in my life, I will not betray them!_

Then the sound would return: _whaoo whaoo whaoo._ The needles digging into his skin like sharp pinches and the stretching feeling in his muscles of the injection coursing into his veins. Until finally the questions were asked and answered. Corin was led away with a bag over his head and shoved in a cell.

What he did know was that he had been served six meals that he could remember since being placed in the cell where the light never changed and there was no measure of time but his own spiraling thoughts. He had puked up the first two meals and refused to eat the third. At the fourth meal, the armed guard who delivered it stood over Corin.

“Eat,” he had ordered the prisoner, “or you will be made to eat.”

Corin had forced the food down though it tasted like ash and he had to fight from gagging as he swallowed.

“Why am I still alive?” He had asked the guard, wiping away moisture from the corners of his eyes with the backs of his hands.

There was no response. Corin was left alone again in the timeless cell with only his own self loathing for company.

What he did know was that he had failed. He had failed his father by betraying the Empire. He had failed the little green child by putting his life in danger again and again. He had failed the Mandalorian, by betraying his good will and trust. Corin’s thoughts spiraled around and around back through his failures always ending with the same thoughts as he drifted into scattered restless hours of sleep: _I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry._

* * *

Corin was woken up by the door of his cell opening. In the disorienting timelessness of the dim room he was never sure how long he slept, but surely it wasn’t time for another meal. He blinked away the light fog of restless sleep and forced himself to sit up on the hard cot. His arms and sides still protested, much healed from his dip in bacta but only recovered enough to bear the drugs he had been dosed with.

Heavy boots pounded on the metallic floor as four stromtroopers with rifles at the ready marched into the cell.

This was different.

Corin was suddenly wide awake and pressing against the back wall. _What do they want? They can’t have more questions. I don’t know anything else._

_Oh. Is this the end?_ He was surprised to find his heart leaping in his chest with fear. He didn't want to die.

One trooper stepped forward and threw a pair of binders on the floor with a loud clang that echoed in the small space.

“Cuff yourself,” he ordered, terse and all business.

Corin swallowed though his mouth was painfully dry. For a moment he considered resisting, but what would be the point. 

“Now, scum.” The stromtrooper ordered, his voice deepening with a sinister threat.

Corin scrambled forward to do as he was told. No sooner were the cuffs around his wrists than a black bag was roughly shoved over his head. Hard gloved hands grabbed his arms, still tender from Karga’s hospitality, and painfully shoved him into a forward march. He tripped blindly on the stairs out of his cell and the guards simply dragged him over them, letting his shins bang against the hard edges. 

They marched him through the base but in the darkness and pain Corin couldn’t place where they were headed. Eventually he was called to halt then lifted by his armpits into what sounded like a troop transport. Long minutes of waiting and the shuffling of boots and clacking of armor around him passed before the transport roared to life and lurched forward. 

_Where are they taking me?_ He wondered.

* * *

The transport lurched to a stop and Corin recognized the familiar sounds of the deployment doors opening. Trooper boots pounded on the deck as they filed off double time. Through the fabric of the bag over his head Corin could smell Navarro; mixed ash, sulfur, and dust. Added in with the normal smells was the stench of burned ozone and singed flesh and hair--recent blaster fire. The heat coming through the doors and the light through the gaps in the fabric told him it was late in the day. 

A droning sound caught his attention, it had grown slowly but started to raise in pitch now to a whine. A Tie-fighter was approaching overhead. The noise grew, louder and louder, building until it was directly overhead. Corin felt the hot wind kicked up by its repulsors battering his body through the light clothing. 

_It’s landing?_ He wondered. A moment later he heard the thunk of the craft settling on hydraulic feet. The engine noises wound down and the central compartment hissed with releasing pressure as it opened to let the pilot out. 

“Up,” the trooper behind Corin ordered. The prisoner struggled to comply, his bent knees aching and stiff from being still for so long. The Trooper heaved him up and shoved him forward. Corin stumbled on numb feet nearly falling on his face as he came out of the transport. It seemed he only went two dozen yards before he was roughly yanked to a halt and forced to his knees. 

Boots shifted in the gravel around him, armor creaked against bodysuits and blaster grips. Footsteps approached on his left accompanied by the swish and snap of a long cape. 

“Sir, the prisoner--”

_Pzaap!_

His escort addressed the approaching figure before he was cut off by a sharp snap and blast of a pistol. The trooper’s body fell bonelessly behind Corin, the slight air it displaced wafting the scent of burned flesh at him. The leather holster hissed as the weapon was returned to the arriving figure’s side. A moment later more stormtroopers were dragging the executed soldier away, the dirt and gravel grinding against the heels of the dead man’s boots.

Sweat ran down the back of Corin's neck, his heart pounding as he waited for the blast to rip through his own skull next. He knew he was shaking pathetically but he couldn’t force his exhausted body to still. 

He jumped when he heard more blaster fire from somewhere ahead of him, a ways away and echoing in a structure. Heavy clangs followed and the muffled sound of a woman’s roared frustration. 

“Your astute panic suggests that you understand your situation,” the Moff’s voice called out, commanding and smug from beside Corin. _Of course,_ he thought, _who else could shoot their own men and hear no word of complaint._

“I would prefer to avoid any further violence,” the Moff continued, “and encourage a moment of consideration. Members of my escort have completed assembly of an E-Web heavy repeating blaster. If you are unfamiliar with this weapon, I am sure that Republican Shock Trooper Carasynthia Dune of Alderaan will advise you that she has witnessed many of her ranks vaporize mid-descent facing the predecessor of this particular model. Or perhaps the decommissioned Mandalorian hunter, Din Djarin…” 

Corin’s ears perked and his pounding heart stuttered. 

“...has heard the songs of the Siege of Mandalore, when gunships outfitted with similar ordnance laid waste to fields of Mandalorian recruits in The Night of a Thousand Tears.” 

_It can’t be. No, it can’t be the same Mandalorian… my Mandalorian… NO!_ Corin felt hot tears pooling in his eyes even as he tried to deny the truth he felt: the Empire had won. The Mandalorian was cornered by a terrifying weapon at the mercy of this Moff. _Where is the child? Please, please, bad luck do not be so cruel. Let the child be safe somewhere else, far from here. Please..._

“I advise disgraced Magistrate Greef Karga to search the wisdom of his years and urge you to lay down your arms and come outside.”

Even through his despair Corin felt a hot surge of revulsion for the Head of the Guild and his bruises ached as he recalled their origins. 

“The structure you are trapped in will be razed in short order and your storied lives will come to an unceremonious end,” the Moff spoke with absolute assurance. There was little solace in knowing Karga would die as well, when it meant the Mandalorian would too. 

“What do you propose?” Greef Karga’s voice called out from the structure.

“Reasonable negotiation.”

“What assurance do you offer?”

“If you’re asking if you can trust me,” the Moff huffed a quiet laugh that only Corin could have heard, “You cannot. Just as you betrayed our business arrangement, I would gladly break any promise and watch you die at my hand. The assurance I give is this: I will act in my own self-interest, which at this time involves your cooperation and benefit. Much like this associate of Din Djarin’s, former Veteran Stormtrooper Captain TK-113 Corin Valentis.”

The bag over Corin’s head was ripped off, and he blinked against the sudden bright sunlight in his eyes. He was in the central square of Navarro before the common house. The front facade was blasted with deep black impacts, and the window was completely shattered. Inside was shadowed and dark, with hints of movement at the sides of the window. To Corin’s left and right black armored Death Troopers stood in a firing line, backed up by a platoon of stormtroopers. The Moff stood directly to his left and dropped the bag into the dirt. He put an almost gentle hand on Corin’s head as he worked to persuade his enemies in their meager shelter:

“His continued usefulness has kept him alive when Imperial protocol would dictate his immediate execution for the treason he has committed. I _can_ be reasonable.” The Moff paused, but no response came from the common house. “I will give you until nightfall, and then I will have the E-Web cannon open fire.” 

The Moff drew his hand back from Corin, turned sharply, and marched away from the common house, leaving the prisoner kneeling in the dusty square like a warning or a prophecy. Corin dropped his head, and one helpless tear broke free, sliding down his face. 

_So I will die at nightfall,_ Corin thought. It was almost a relief, knowing the indeterminate waiting and self loathing had a finite end in sight. _Will the Moff make me watch them burn the Mandalorian and his companions out of the building first? Will they surrender?_ The thought of the Mandalorian surrendering turned Corin’s stomach. He didn’t want to see that strong and gentle man brought low by humiliation, executed like a dog not the warrior he was. _No,_ he thought, _that won’t happen._ It was little comfort, but it was all he had; The Mandalorian-- _Din, Din Djarin--_ would not surrender. _Din Djarin,--_ Corin took a moment to linger on the name in his mind, imagining what it would sound like from any other less odious set of lips than the Moff's. The name felt wrongfully stolen, but precious; something Corin coveted like a filthy thief, but cherished all the same. 

Distant blaster fire echoed into the square, a few short shots.

Corin tensed.

Then a few more. Closer.

The Troopers around Corin’s kneeling form shifted, first the white stormtroopers, then even the Death Troopers, as the sounds of sporadic shots got closer and closer. The droning whir of a speeder echoed through the usually pedestrian restricted streets, the high pitched whine of an engine going all out, too fast for safety. Corin turned to follow the sound as the stormtroopers shuffled nervously and regrouped in that direction, blasters turning away from the common house. 

A speeder careened into the square with a barrage of blaster fire opening upon the stromtroopers. An IG droid leaped off the hurtling vehicle, sending the now pilotless projectile into the ranks of troopers. Corin threw himself forward away from the path as the speeder turned sideways, the front dipped and caught in the dirt, making the whole thing pinwheel in the air before it crashed in a fiery explosion. Stormtroopers screamed orders, blaster fire exploded across the square. Corin rolled over in the sunbaked dirt, blinking dust out of his eyes to see the IG, fearless under fire, shooting back with double blasters, spinning 360 degrees without restraint around its center.

The heavy _thunk, thunk, thunk_ of a repeating blaster sent Corin's heart leaping into his throat for a moment, thinking the E-Web had opened fire on the common house. But the shots were coming _from_ the smashed front window of the house, mowing across the troopers in the square from a figure kneeling on the bar-top within. Then the door opened, and the Mandalorian strode out into the chaos, his beskar armor shining, and T-visor tilted down in cold fury. Corin couldn’t tear his eyes away.

The Mandalorian grabbed the arm of a trooper firing at the IG before he could even realized the door beside him had opened. The silver helmet didn’t turn as the Mandalorian raised his blaster to the stunned trooper’s visor and shot at point blank, shoving the body out of his way. A blaster shot ricocheted off his beskar pauldron with barely a visible flinch. The Mandalorian slammed his boot into the next trooper’s chest, as the imperial was turning his weapon on the newly emerged threat, then shot the downed trooper in the chest while he sighted his next targets, visor panning over the melee and fixing in Corin’s direction. The Mandalorian fired towards him and he pressed against the ground as the shots flew over his head. Heavy bodies fell on either side of Corin’s prone form. One, a black armored Death Trooper, scrambled to regain his weapon, only wounded, his filtered breathing coming out hard with pain. The Mandalorian was on him before he got the weapon up, kicking the helmet with a heavy boot and executing the trooper with a blast from his pistol. 

“Can you stand?” The Mandalorian demanded of Corin. A bright flash of plasma burst across the Mandalorian’s chest before Corin could respond, nearly blinding him. The shot was deflected but still enough to make the Mandalorian stumble back and nearly fall. Corin turned to see the Death Trooper closing in on them with his blaster raised only to have the weapon sent spiraling out of his gauntlets by the Mandalorian’s return fire. The Death Trooper didn’t pause. He charged the Mandalorian. 

Corin scrambled to get his feet, under him, staying low and crouched as he searched for a weapon. His still bound hands closed on the SE-14r blaster pistol on the fallen Death Trooper’s belt. Fumbling to disengage the safety, he watched the disarmed Death Trooper grappling with the Mandalorian. One black gauntlet got a grip under the front lip of the T visor. The Mandalorian’s reaction was instantaneous and instinctual, knocking away the Death Trooper's hand. Corin tried to call out a warning before a second Death Trooper could close in on the Mandalorian’s back, but his voice cracked soundlessly.

It made no difference. The Mandalorian spun on the spot, grabbing the second Death Trooper’s arms and wrenching them away. At the same time, he shot back without looking at the Trooper who had tried to remove his helmet. The helmet grabber’s visor exploded in a shower of transparisteel shards and plasma. But the momentary division of focus gave the new Death Trooper the advantage he needed to throw the beskar clad bounty hunter over his hip into the dirt. The Mandalorian landed on his back, but didn’t stay down for even half a second, kicking his foot up to catch the Death Trooper in the gut. Corin got his numb fingers to finally cooperate and lifted the 14r, unloading two shots in the Death Trooper standing over the Mandalorian without hesitation.

The Mandalorian leapt to his feet, blaster still in hand, and his visor snapped from the dead trooper to Corin. 

“Get inside,” he ordered.

“Roger!” Corin shouted out of pure habit. He ran in his crouch toward the door, but only got two steps closer before there was an explosion on that side of the building. The repeating blaster fire from inside the common house cut off and smoke plumed out the front window. Death Troopers filed in the door ahead of Corin. 

He ran after them shooting one in the back and catching another on the shoulder, before he had to doge to the side of the doorway to avoid the hail of blaster-fire that cut through the remaining troopers from inside. Apparently whatever the explosion was hadn’t taken out the gunner within. Corin collapsed backward against the outside wall of the common houes beside the door. In the square before him stormtroopers were scrambling for cover. The Mandalorian had the heavy E-Web gun in hand, arms straining to hold it up as it fired shot after shot through the stormtroopers lined up like tin cans. Corin almost grinned. It was a sight to behold.

A dark figure stepped out between the stormtroopers, calm amid their panicked scrambling: the Moff. He raised his blaster toward the Mandalorian at the same time the Mandalorian turned the E-Web in that direction. At the last moment the Moff’s pistol dipped down. Corin had a split second to realize where his aim had shifted.

_NO!_ He pushed off the wall, running for the Mandalorian, far too late.

The charge-block for the E-Web took a direct hit from the Moff’s gun and exploded with an ear shattering shockwave and a ball of fire. Windows around the square imploded and Corin was shoved backward by the force. The Mandalorian was hurled and spun in the air, coming down in the dust on his back hard. And he stayed down.

“No!” Corin found his voice, choked and hoarse. Ears still ringing he ran for the Mandalorian’s prone form, no plan, just a need to do something--anything--to save that man. A woman raced up beside him, swinging a repeating blaster onto her back. 

“Cover us!” She ordered, dark eyes meeting Corin’s for a second.

“R-roger,” he agreed. He didn’t have time to marvel at how she dragged up the heavily armored man several inches taller than she was and bodily carried him from the square. Corin was too busy returning fire on the stormtroopers who had gotten their second wind. He backed up with the woman, keeping himself between the Mandalorian and the troopers, as they made for the blasted out door. Karga closed in beside him, shoulder to shoulder, and the IG droid joined a moment later. Corin noticed in the corner of his eye there was a backpack on the droid’s chest and a green head and ears poking out of it. 

_The child!_ He realized in a mixture of panic and relief--glad the child was not in Gideon's hands but terrified any stray blaster shot might hurt him. They ducked through the entryway into the burned out common house and for a moment there was a reprieve from the fighting. 

The Dropper, because the woman could only be the Republic Drop Trooper Carasythia Dune the Moff had taunted, dragged the Mandalorian to a fallen bench and propped him against it. The man was too limp and too still. Corin hurried over to her side, standing stunned over a scene that could have been one of his nightmares. Through the Mandalorian's armor it was hard to tell if he was even still breathing.

“Stay with me, buddy,” the Dropper said to him. “We’re gonna get you outta here.”

“Excuse me,” the IG unit at Corin’s elbow made him jump violently. The droid held out a manipulator arm with a plasma cutter. Before Corin could pull away the droid snapped the central locking mechanism of the cuffs around his wrists. “You will be more efficient now.” 

“IG,” Karga called to the hunter droid over to a corner where a sewer grate was exposed against the wall. “This is our way out. Put that plasma cutter to use clearing it.”

Corin ignored them. He twisted his wrists out of the broken cuffs and sank down beside the Mandalorian across from the Dropper.

“Stay with me,” she said, feeling at her belt for a medpack that wasn’t there.

The Mandalorian coughed beneath the helmet, and Corin let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. His heart soared into his throat to see some sign of life, only to plummet into his gut with the Mandalorian’s first soft words, tense with pain:

“I’m not gonna make it.” 

The beskar helmet turned slightly to Corin, and he took the hand that raised toward him weakly. The well worn leather was soft against his calloused palms. 

“Go,” the Mandalorian insisted. Corin's head was shaking in denial before consciously realizing he was doing it. _This can’t be happening,_ he told himself. _The Mandalorian can't be... can't... not here, not right in front of my eyes._

“Shut up,” the Dropper said roughly, reaching up to the Mandalorian’s neck and feeling the top of his spine. “You just got your bell rung. You’ll be fine.” The Mandalorian coughed wetly, like there was liquid in his throat. Corin flinched at the sound and bit his lip, the sharp pain grounding him in the hellish reality.

“Leave me,” the Mandalorian insisted, his voice even softer than before, pushing the Dropper away. 

The Dropper hissed and pulled her hand back, staring down at it in horror. Red ran between her fingers. Corin shared a look with her over the Mandalorian’s prone form. The same disbelief and fear clenching around his heart reflected back to him in her expression. She shook her head, visibly shutting down those feelings with stubborn denial. 

“I’m gonna need to take this thing off,” she said, to the injured man. Like an unconscious reflex, the Mandalorian quickly closed his free hand around her wrist. 

“No,” there was a note of panic in his voice, then he gathered himself. “You leave me.” He gave a gasp of pain and turned to Corin again. “Both of you. You make sure the child is safe.” The Mandalorian grabbed at his collar, pulling out a leather cord and ripping it off. “Here." He pressing something hard into Corin’s hand. “When you get to the Mandalorian covert, you show them that. You tell them it’s from Djarin. You tell them the foundling was in my protection, and they’ll help you.”

Corin gazed down at the mythosaur skull pendant in his hands glimmering with the familiar shine of beskar, still warm from the Mandalorian’s own body heat. 

“We can make it,” the Dropper urged but her voice was cracking. 

Corin closed his hand around the pendant and looked back at the black visor. He struggled for words to say; there were so many clamoring in his mind.

“I’m sorry,” was all he managed to whisper. “I’m so sorry.” _Failure, traitor, weak, worthless!_ The mantra of self-loathing silently chanted.

Heavy footsteps outside echoed into the common house. Behind them Karga urged the IG unit to work faster on the grate. 

“Nothing to be sorry for,” the Mandalorian choked out. The kindness of the lie cut like a knife and hot tears sprung to Corin’s eyes. He fought them back.

“Don’t give in to this! Help me!” The Dropper said, trying to pull the Mandalorian up. The Mandalorian turned his helmet to her and put his hands over hers on his breastplate, and even that sluggish moment spoke of weakness.

“I’m not gonna make it, and you know it,” he said, each word feeling like a kick to Corin’s ribs.

A blast of fire, bright and hot, shot through the smashed front window, curling across the bar and over the ceiling. Glass shattered and the sound of the roaring flames was deafening. 

The Dropper threw herself over the Mandalorian. Corin ducked his head, but searched around frantically for the satchel and the child, squinting against the bright flare of the fire. The little green creature was scrambling his way across the ruined floor towards them. Corin lunged towards the child, wrapping his body protectively around the precious creature. 

As sudden as it had begun the fire at the window stopped. Corin scooped the little guy into his arms, feeling the small body shaking against him. The large eyes were turned toward the prone figure of the Mandalorian and he made soft mewling noises as he tried to wriggle out of Corin’s grip. 

“I’m sorry,” Corin whispered to the child. “I’m so sorry. He’s…” His voice broke. _My fault,_ he thought. _This could have been avoided. If I had been stronger, smarter, faster, better..._

The child went still in his arms and twisted toward the door, drawing Corin’s gaze up to the shadow that filled the blasted out entrance. A flame trooper stomped into the doorway, weapon primed and dark visor tipped down. Corin drew a terrified breath. He saw the Dropper again shielding the Mandalorian with her body in the corner of his eye; it would do no good. 

The flamethrower sputtered once, a small burst of fire lighting up the dark helmet, before unleashing an inferno. Corin cringed from the heat, wrapping his arms tighter around the child uselessly, bracing for the scorching death coming for him. The little claws released his arm.

The heat hit Corin like a physical wave but he didn’t feel the burning he was expecting. The fire roared like a continuous explosion above him but he felt only suffocatingly hot. Corin cracked an eye open to see the fire just a few feet from his face burning and crashing against an invisible barrier that was protecting him and the child, spreading across the room. The barrier pushed back, shoving the fire away from them as Corin watched in awed silence. A small sound of exertion drew his gaze down toward the child, trembling in his arms. The three-fingered claws were held up towards the blaze and it’s large eyes were closed and scrunched with concentration.

Corin looked back and forth between the child and the fire pushing farther and farther from them.

_This is why they wanted him. This is what it was always about,_ he realized. _This child is so much more than he appears._

The fire was pushed back with one final shove, closing around the flame trooper. It set off the soldier’s own fuel pack in a smaller fireball that blasted outward into the square.

A sharp clanging sound signaled that IG had finished cutting through the grate.

“Come on! It’s open,” Karga shouted. “Let’s go!”

The child gave a tired coo in Corin’s arms, large eyes lifting to meet his, then fluttering closed in exhaustion. Corin held the precious bundle closer to his chest. He hurried over to the Mandalorian, who was pushing the Dropper weakly away toward the grate. 

“Go, go,” he rasped at her, fervently. 

She was still hesitating, shaking her head stubbornly. 

“Corin,” the Mandalorian turned to the ex-stormtrooper and then down at the sleeping child. “Please,” the word was so quiet Corin might have imagined it. He understood what the Mandalorian was feeling at that moment. The people he loved and cared for were risking danger and death because he was too weak. That kind of guilt was worse than any physical pain.

“I will protect him,” Corin promised, grasping the Mandalorian’s hand one last time. “I won’t forget you.” There were tears in his eyes that he refused to let fall.

“ _Ven’par ni darasuum,”_ the Mandalorian replied, his voice filled with relief, sounding almost peaceful.

“I-” Corin shook his head. “I don’t know what that means.”

“We have to move. Now!” Karga shouted at them.

“Go,” the Mandalorian rasped, pushing the Dropper away. She finally stood to her feet pulling Corin with her. He let himself be dragged away despite how it tore him up inside. Both reticent to turn their gaze away from the prone figure amid the rubble they scrambled for the sewer entrance. Corin only broke his gaze when the IG droid closed one manipulator hand around his arm. Instinctively he held the exhausted child closer to his chest. 

“The child is entrusted to you,” it said in its mechanical voice, “Escape and protect it. I will stay with the Mandalorian.” Corin nodded and moved toward the broken grate. He glanced one last time toward the fallen Mandalorian. The shiny beskar was blackened with soot and his helmet lolled limply to the side, a few splatters of blood showing on the ground beneath him. He could have been dead for how still he lay. Corin knew in that moment it was an image that would haunt his dreams for years to come.

He ducked into the sewer grate and the Mandalorian disappeared from sight behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise not every chapter will end with a goodbye! A lot of this chapter was a replay of the episode so I might post another one this weekend if I finish editing it. Stay tuned!
> 
> Mando'a:  
> Ven’par ni darasuum - Thus I will be eternal (Din is referencing the Mandalorian prayer of remembrance that ends with ‘I remember you, so you are eternal’ ‘Ni partayli, gar darasuum’. Ven’par is a mashup of the future tense and the word meaning ‘for’. So literally it says: for the future I ‘will be - implied’ eternal.)
> 
> Thanks to everyone who has read this far! I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments. 
> 
> You can also follow my random stuff and ask me questions on tumblr [@novembermurray](https://novembermurray.tumblr.com/)


	6. The Sacrifice - Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Din acquires a jetpack and wins back an old friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously: Badly injured in the fight against Moff Gideon and his stormtroopers, Din sent Cara, Corin, and Greef Karga with the child into the sewers to seek help from the Mandalorian Covert. Left alone with the rebuilt hunter droid, IG-11, Din prepares to meet his fate.
> 
> I'm having a terrible week so have a chapter early! And PAZ! PAZ is here. Though things between him and Din aren't... great.
> 
> So I’m breaking away from canon here in regards to a few things--some because Paz (do I need to explain further?) and the other... well... There’s no lava river. Because I can’t get over movie lava; it just breaks my immersion too much. I can’t help thinking, ‘NO! That’s NOT how that works. They would be turbo dead.’ Yes. Yes. I know: “All the bullshit and ridiculousness in Star Wars and the LAVA is what you take issue with?!” YES! Thus, Navarro is riddled with underground rivers of acid, which is arguably just as cool. Sorry if that bothers anyone, you can just imagine it says 'lava' wherever I've written 'acid'.

Flames crackled around the main room of the Navarro Common house, burning the spilled liquor and shattered furniture. The Mandalorian could smell charred ozone and flesh mixed with the Navarro ash and stench of alcohol. 

_ What a place to die,  _ he thought. The room spun even though he knew he wasn’t moving and his whole body felt battered, like he’d been slammed by a Mudhorn again--several Mudhorns perhaps. 

_They have a chance to escape though,_ he told himself. _They_ ** _will_** _escape. They must. The Covert will help them. All of them…_

At his side the IG hunter droid approached with whizzing servos and clicking joints. It dropped down to a knee before him, pinning the Mandalorian with the dark tubular sensors it used for eyes. 

_ It was always going to be droids. _

“Do it,” he growled out, forcing his breath to make speech against the pain.

“Do what?” the droid asked. Ridiculously. 

“Just get it over with. I’d rather you kill me than some Imp.” Once the words were out in the air, he hated them. Here at the end he was useless, too dizzy to see straight, much less shoot straight. He couldn’t hold off two half-trained stormtrooper recruits much less the half dozen remaining Death Troopers outside. 

“I told you,” the IG unit said in its never changing tone, “I am no longer a hunter. I am a nurse droid.”

“IGs are all hunters,” the Mandalorian argued. He had seen this IG droid shoot his way through a whole squadron just to bring the child to his protectors. Never mind what a stupid plan that was.

“Not this one,” the droid disagreed. “I was reprogrammed. I need to remove your helmet if I am to save you.”

Even half exploded and bleeding down his neck the Mandalorian’s movements were instinctual. He was cocking the blaster before the droid had a manipulator on the beskar.

“Try it and I’ll kill you. It is…” he struggled to speak, the droid doubling and swaying in his vision, “forbidden. No living thing has seen me without my helmet since I… sore the Creed.” _If I am going to die here to this hunk of kriffing metal I will die as_ ** _myself,_** he thought.

“I am not a living thing,” the droid replied. 

_ Droids are not alive,  _ the Mandalorian agreed in his mind automatically. Hadn’t he always been the one to say that.  _ They aren’t people. They don’t have feelings. They can’t be trusted to make decisions. They are tools, inhumane dangerous ones. They are not alive and better off in pieces. _

The manipulator arm under the rim of his helmet found the release and lifted it away gently. The Mandalorian’s head dropped against the hard bench he was resting against with a new sharp flare of pain. He felt the heat of the flames on his unprotected face and the smells of the battle filled his nose, so much more potent without the helmet filters. His eyes stung from the smoky air. Without the helmet he felt naked and exposed before this killer droid. He flinched as the manipulator arm reconfigured with a hiss. 

It felt wrong, intensely wrong. The Mandalorian knew his heart was racing and fresh adrenaline running through his veins. He felt paralyzed not only by pain and exhaustion, but by the implications of what he had allowed.

“This is a bacta spray,” the droid informed him. A spitting sound came from the manipulator by his ear. “It will heal you in a number of hours.” 

_ If I live that long,  _ the Mandalorian thought ruefully. He felt cool liquid misting across his scalp and sticking in his hair. It immediately itched terribly and burned like very cold ice, before a blissful numbness overtook much of his head and neck. It must have been high concentration bacta, expensive and potent but dangerous if overused. Certainly not standard issue on IG hunters. It would seem Kuiil did more than reprogram the droid.

“You have suffered damage to your central processing unit.” IG-11 noted without a change in tone or inflection. For a moment the Mandalorian was sure he had misheard or imagined the strange line. The shock was enough to pull him out of the panicked place his mind was retreating to. He turned his head to study the droid quizzically, wetting his lips to speak.

“You mean my brian?”

“That was a joke. It is meant to put you at ease.” IG said, retracting his manipulator.

The Mandalorian chuckled through his aching ribs at the sheer ridiculousness of it all.

“We must move,” the droid informed him. “The troopers are regrouping and will breach this position in 20 seconds.” The droid picked up the helmet and gently eased it back onto the Mandalorian’s head. The padding and the lip of the helmet pressed against his split scalp and caused a fresh wave of agony and nausea, cutting through the numbing bacta. Still the relative quiet and familiarity of his helmet was like a balm, an embrace of safety around him.

The droid closed his manipulators around the Mandalorian’s forearms and lifted with the uncanny strength of a machine. The Mandalorian swayed, as the unrelenting dizziness tried to tip him back onto the floor. His stomach rolled but he forced his body not to rebel. Out of sheer will, he didn’t fall. 

The IG unit had to half carry him, but managed to get them to the sewer grate. It wasn’t far down and the slope was gentle enough to slide down into the tunnels that ran beneath Navarro. With clumsy fingers the Mandalorian turned on his helmet light to help guide the way. Overhead he could hear the boots storming the common house and modulated voices shouting.

“Heat patterns indicate our allies went in this direction,” IG said, tugging the off kilter Mandalorian to the left.

“Then we go the opposite direction,” the Mandalorian argued, pulling against him.

“For what purpose?”

“Draw the troopers away, give our friends less resistance to fight, maybe more time to escape. It will be safer for the child if we can split the enemy forces.”  _ And we would only slow them down right now--  _ **_I_ ** _ would only slow them down. _

“This is sound logic,” IG agreed, already moving the Mandalorian in that direction. The tunnels echoed with the metallic sound of the droid’s joints and the clinking of beskar. The Mandalorian could hear his own labored breathing in his helmet. The HUD kept a running update on his lifesigns that he tried to diligently avoid looking at. 

The tunnel they were in came to a junction. Open pathways led left and right. The way directly opposite them was breached by a fissure in the earth that cut through the floor and ceiling. The deep opening in the earth had broken through the duracrete, exposing porus and pock-marked black Navaran stone. Out of the stone fissure and flooding the five foot wide crack in the floor was yellowish faintly steaming liquid that trickled and flowed through channels eroded into the duracrete walls.

“An acid flow,” the Mandalorian noted. “We should go right, the Covert is... south by my guess so…” he trailed off as a new wave of nausea overcame him and he nearly doubled over. Only the IG’s strong grip under his arms kept him upright. 

“You need rest. We will cross the acid flow,” the IG said succinctly. 

“N-no. The acid is--” the Mandalorian was cut off as one metallic arm wrapped tight around his shoulders and the droid leaned over to wrap the other around the back of his legs. The sudden change in verticality set his head spinning even worse, his pulse pounding against his temples, and strained his aching ribs enough to cut off his breathing momentarily. He was struggling to gasp for breath as the droid stepped into the murky acidic liquid and waded across. A few drops of blood rolled down the back of the Mandalorian’s neck, dripping off into the liquid where they fell with a loud hiss and created new trails of foul smelling vapor. The Mandalorian had a moment to hope the droid wouldn’t drop him to an agonizing death by dissolution before IG-11 was climbing out of the flow.

The droid set the Mandalorian down a bit more gently on the far side and waited a moment for the human to catch his breath. 

“That… was…” the Mandalorian gasped out.

“The Stormtroopers will not be able to follow us across but they will waste time and effort searching for a way to circumvent this obstacle to reach us. This was the optimal plan.”

The Mandalorian furrowed his brow behind the helmet and tried to growl his displeasure, only to be cut off by a painful fit of coughing that left his sides screaming. 

“Fine,” he wheezed, as the droid started leading him down the tunnel again. The path they were on started to slope down sharply and ended with several collapsed passages. The only one that was passable led into a staircase that descended further, wrapping back around in the direction of the covert--or so the Mandalorian guessed. Through his disorientation the Mandalorian had to admit that he wasn’t sure where he was. Lower down the damage to the tunnels was more severe. There were scorch marks on some walls that looked like explosive charges had been set off recently. 

Passing yet another half collapsed junction, a voice called out from the dark towards them. The mandalorian had his blaster raised in half a breath, but he stumbled as the IG Droid pushed him firmly against the wall and stood between the source of the sound and his patient.

_ “Tion aru’e ra burc’ya?” (Are you an enemy or a friend?)  _ the faint voice called, distorted by echoes and a helmet’s modulator.

“Wait here. I will remove this danger,” IG-11 said, raising both its blasters.

“No!” the Mandalorian said quickly, struggling to push off the wall and holster his own weapon again. “It's an ally.  _ Burc’ya, Mando’ade oya’karad.” (Friend, a Mandalorian Hunter.)  _ He called a little louder into the tunnel. 

“Good!” the voice called back. “Come get me out from under this rubble. It’s got my leg and arm pinned.”

IG helped the Mandalorian over the fallen rocks and duracrete chunks into the darkened tunnel. His helmet light landed on an armored body, half buried under a fallen slab of the ceiling. He immediately recognized the blue and orange plates and the tall, wide-shouldered Mandalorian commando. The sharp lines of his helmet were distinctive and aggressive even when they were looking up from a prone, defenseless position on the ground. 

“ _ Su’cuy, ramikad,” (Hello, Commando)  _ The silver helmed Mandalorian hunter greeted, leaning heavily on the droid to stay upright.

“So it  _ is  _ you,” Paz Vizsla, groaned. “You came back.”

“ _ Dank farrik!  _ ” The other Mandalorian cursed, looking over the damaged plates of blue beskar, singed with blaster scouring and dented by heavy impacts. “How did you end up here? Where are the others?” While IG lowered him to sit on a block of rubble, the Mandalorian Commando explained: 

“We revealed ourselves. Things went bad after that. I’ve been down here two days waiting for the Imps to find me, the acid flow to get this deep, or starvation to do me in.” The droid got to work inspecting the situation, while the Commando looked his rescuer up and down critically. “What happened to  _ you  _ ? Someone try to blow you up? You don’t look that much better than I do.”

“I’m at least… upright,” the Mandalorian hunter struggled to find some way to contradict his old rival--ex-friend.

The Commando chuckled darkly. 

“I can lift this obstruction,” IG said, “but first I must administer anticoagulants and antitoxins to prevent you from dying of shock once freed.”

The Commando was silent for a moment staring at IG-11. 

“What kind of hunter droid is this?”

“I have been reprogrammed,” IG-11 said, bending over his trapped patient and deploying mechanized needles from its wrists, jabbing both into the Commando’s leg and then his shoulder under the pauldron. “I am a nurse droid.”

The Commando hissed at the injections and his helmet fell back against the floor with a solid thunk sound, which probably meant the pain was excruciating. The droid positioned itself over the trapped Mandalorian and stabbed it’s manipulators into the duracrete, digging hand-holds out of the rocklike material. Its servos and motors whined terribly as it lifted the slab, just a few inches. The Commando dragged his injured limbs out by scuttling across the floor with his good leg, rolling away before the duracrete shattered around IG-11’s hands and huge chunks of it fell back where he had been lying a moment before.

“I thought you hated droids,” the Commando said, breathing heavy.

“I… do,” the Mandalorian Hunter answered, but the words rang false in his own ears, surprising no one more than himself. “What are you doing down here?” he changed the subject.

“We were leading the Imps away from the Covert, trying to draw them into a trap. Worked in a manner of speaking but… caught quite a few of us in the trap as well.” The Commando looked past where he had been pinned into the completely collapsed tunnel beyond. The hunter felt a cold sensation of worry curl into his gut wondering who else had been there.  _ Surely Raga wasn’t… or he’d be… He’d be what? Paz show sorrow or weakness to me? No. Not after what happened on Mandalore--after the Night of a Thousand Tears--after Barthor... _

“How did Imperials find the Covert?” He asked through the lump in his throat instead of voicing his worries or letting his regrets consume him.

“We revealed ourselves,” the Commando said like it was blindly obvious, “because you got the idea there was something worth protecting.”

“There was--is.”  _ If Corin, Cara and the child make it out of these tunnels,  _ he thought.  _ Not ‘if’, ‘when’.  _ The Commando had gotten himself settled, dragged up into a sitting position against the wall of the tunnel.

“After you left,” he explained, “the Imperials swarmed Navarro hunting us. I don’t know where they kept coming from. There were more stormies than I’ve seen in one place since the Empire fell. They were well organized too and well prepared. They knew what to expect and how to fight us.”

“Gideon,” the Hunter hissed under his breath.

“What?” 

“It’s Moff Gideon, that’s who leads them. He lured me back here, tried to parley with us.”

“You’re sure? You’re sure it's  _ him?”  _ there was a shaking rage in the Commando’s voice that the modulator couldn’t hide. The Hunter nodded.

“ _ Osik!”  _ the Commando cussed. “That explains a lot.”

“Did any escape?”

“We sent the teachers and the foundlings away as soon as possible with a number of guards. The rest of us stayed to cover our tracks and destroy what could not be brought along. They attacked before we could complete the work. We were surrounded and overrun, all our exits cut off, trapped like rats. My group made a stand in the tunnels above but the fissure opened and the acid flow cut us off. The Stormtroopers went around and had us pinned down here. We collapsed the tunnel, taking as many of them with us as we could. What a stupid way to die--what a waste!”

The Hunter flinched at the harsh accusation in his comrades' angry tone and asked the question he was dreading:

“Was _ tracyn goor’ad…  _ ”  _ (fire-cracker)  _ he used their old nickname for Raga, Paz’s inseparable best friend. To his shame he couldn’t even finish his sentence before his voice choked off. He didn’t know what he would do if he was responsible for the death of another childhood friend.

The big Mandalorian was very still for a moment before shaking his head. “We signed up to go with the foundlings together as protection. I stayed behind at the last moment. I told her over the comms. She was pissed.” The Commando gave another huffing bitter laugh, but there was a grateful tone to it.

The Hunter let out the breath he had been holding.  _ Raga will be fine. Madder than a raging rancor, but alive. She escaped. Maybe ramikad won’t even try to murder me if we made it out of here,  _ he thought.

“Tell me it was worth it,” the Commando demanded suddenly in a growl.

“It--” the other Mandalorian stumbled on his words, caught off guard by the jarring mood swing. The Commando drew his blaster and leveled it at the silver helmet with his good arm. IG-11 responded just as quickly, drawing both blasters on the blue armored man. 

“This Mandalorian is in my care,” the droid intoned dispassionately, “If you do not lower your blaster I will be forced to take violent actions.” The Commando ignored it and kept his weapon steady.

“Tell me it was worth it,” he hissed, almost a dare.

The Hunter swallowed hard, thinking of the terrible price his actions had cost-- _ were still costing  _ his friends. And he thought of the child.

“It was.” The Mandalorian’s voice was thick with sorrow but not regret, and his helmet never dipped. Behind the visor his gaze was steady on his brother-in-arms. Even with the heavy price that had been paid, he didn’t regret saving the child--couldn’t regret it. He wouldn’t have been able to live with his sin if he took any other course of action.

The Commando stared down at his comrade for a long moment, reading the sincerity and assurance in the other Mandalorian’s body language, before his arm dropped with an exhausted sigh. 

“You always were a stubborn  _ di’kut  _ ,”  _ (idiot)  _ he said gruffly.

“And you were always a rude  _ ori’jagyc  _ ,”  _ (bully)  _ the smaller man replied with a huff somewhere between a laugh and a sigh of relief.  _ Should have known it was premature to dismiss murder,  _ the Hunter thought ruefully.

The Commando holstered his weapon and shifted against the wall, trying to get comfortable with his injuries.

“I take it these are Mandalorian words of endearment,” IG-11 said, putting away his own blasters.

“Was that another joke?” The Hunter asked.

“Why would that be a joke?” The droid replied. The Commando shook his head.

“Of all the people I thought might find me down here, you and a droid doing a comedy act are the last thing I expected. Alright. Help me up.” He held up a gauntlet to IG. The droid took his arm and lifted the hulking man in heavy beskar seemingly effortlessly. “We should get back to the Covert, see if anyone else is there--salvage what we can.”

“I sent allies ahead,” the other Mandalorian said. “I hoped they would find aid there.” He recalled his last glimpses of his allies in the burning common house. Cara had looked at him like she’d never forgive him for dying that way. Karga looked back with uncharacteristic guilt. Maybe the old man was getting soft. Corin… 

The Hunter’s throat constricted uncomfortably when he thought of the ex-stormtrooper. Corin had looked broken and determined at the same time under the molting of half healed bruises and shallow cuts across his handsome face. Corin’s over-bright blue eyes had been filled with his promises, and his strong arms had been wrapped around the little sleeping child, cradling it to his chest. That at least had been a comforting sight when he thought all was lost. His chest clenched painfully thinking about the child who would awaken without him, the last image of his protector being one of blood and fire.  _ I can’t let that be the last thing he sees of me,  _ he resolved,  _ not if there is any other way. _

Tentatively he rose to his feet. He swayed but managed to stay upright. 

“They have the Foundling,” he said, glad to find his voice didn’t waver, “and the Imperials are pursuing them.”

“Oh, you always come bearing the  _ best  _ news.” The Commando limped around his comrade toward the open end of the tunnel, switching on his helmet lamp. “Come on. We figured there was another way back up this direction.” He led them around the bend.

_ Even injured he has to be the first one in the room,  _ the silver armored Mandalorian thought, rolling his eyes behind his visor.

“His sarcasm is not necessary,” IG noted. The smaller Mandalorian could swear the droid sounded almost offended by the Commando’s attitude. “Our arrival meant his freedom and continued survival. That is good news.”

“I wasn’t being sarcastic.” The Commando replied with a vicious grin in his voice. He tipped his helmet back to look at his rescuers and gave the blaster on his hip a pat. “Let’s find me some bucket-heads to shoot.  _ Oya!  _ ” 

\--

There were stormtroopers in the Covert when the two Mandalorians and IG-11 reached it. The Hunter could almost hear the Commando grinning under his bucket as he waited for the droid to finish scanning for lifesigns.

“Four troopers are in the junctions beyond. There are two more squads that will arrive within 20 seconds and within 40 seconds approximately once we are detected.”

“You up for this?” the Hunter asked the injured Commando.

“What do you think?” Yes, he was definitely grinning a murderous twisted sort of grin under his fierce looking blue helmet. 

“ _ Jeka’ir bal mircir?  _ ” the Hunter proposed a plan.

“You first,” the Commando replied.

The Hunter crept forward towards the nearest squad, letting them catch a glimpse of his movement to act as a distraction, drawing them into a pincer between himself and the Commando. The first four they took down easily, dividing the enemy and covering each other’s backs like the old days. Despite the years since they had fought together, rather than against each other, it was an easy rhythm to fall into. The next squad made them break a sweat. The Commando charged them as the distraction this time, switching off without needing a word from his partner. IG and the Hunter picked off the troopers with blaster fire. The last group of reinforcements hurried towards the commotion. The three infiltrators heard them coming a long way off.

“It’s my last one,” the larger Mandalorian told the Hunter and tossed over an explosive puck. “Don’t miss.”

“I don’t,” the Hunter answered, reflexively. The Commando might have always been bigger and stronger, been able to run faster and farther, handle the heavier weaponry, but the Hunter always had better aim. He ducked around the next corner and spun the puck across the tunnel floor towards the junction where the pounding sound of boots emitted. A moment later the ground shook, the ceiling shuddered, duracrete dust fell around them and the sound slammed the three infiltrators.

The Commando peaked around the corner first.

“No, you don’t,” he said with a shake of his head. The troopers, what was left of them, were blasted onto all four corners of the junction. The explosive had been right in the middle of them when it blew.

“Come one,” the Commando urged them. “Lets see if there’s anything to be salvaged--find your allies.” ‘.. _ .if they are still alive,’  _ was left unsaid. 

The Hunter noticed that the other Mandalorian was limping more than before when he walked away. The strain of fighting, maybe a luck blow or two, were taking their toll on his already exhausted and battered body. Even  _ ramikade  _ had limits. 

The Hunter got up to follow, but he paused stepping over a white armored body. There were three shots in the man’s back, clustered in a tight grouping: his own handy work. The helmet looked undamaged though and the Hunter pulled it off roughly, trying not to notice that the man had dark hair like Corin’s and a young face. 

“IG, can you patch into the comm system in this bucket?” He held out the white and black helmet to the droid.

“It will take some time.” IG took the offered helmet, and his free manipulator extended a data jack.

“Do what you can. See if you can determine where the other troopers were sent on Navarro.”

“I understand.”

Wordlessly the Mandalorians headed for the center of the Covert, the one place they knew any survivors would go: the Forge.

Despite knowing what his actions had resulted in, the Mandalorian Hunter wasn’t prepared for seeing the pile of armor, like discarded shells on a beach, outside of the forge door. When the Commando saw it he clenched his uninjured fist and marched faster. The Hunter’s shoulders dropped, tension flowing out of him as it was replaced with a weight of grief. His feet slowed and dragged. 

Both Mandalorians came to a halt when the Armorer stepped out into the hallway, her golden helmet shining with the light of the fire burning inside and the tools of her trade in hand. 

“So you survive,” she said. It was impossible to know who she was looking at, one or both of them.

“Did any others?” The Commando demanded, finding his voice faster than the Hunter.

“Of our Covert? Perhaps. Some may have fought their way to the surface. I remained here to salvage what I could.”

“The foundling!” the Hunter hurried up beside his companion. “Did a group pass through here with the foundling?”

“They did. They showed a sign of our people and gave me your name.”

“Where are they now?” He begged urgently.

“I sent them to the underground acid river. It will take them beyond the city to the lava flats.” The Hunter let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding and relief flowed through him. 

“I need to follow them,” he said “They may still be in danger.”

“You need to resupply, and we have important matters to discuss,” she turned back toward the forge with a command, “Come.”

The other Mandalorians followed her inside. IG stood at the door, his manipulator arms busy with the stormtrooper helmet but his visual sensors and scanners occupied with watching for danger.

“Your companions told me of your foundling,” that armorer said, picking up the ladle and dipping it into the pool of molten beskar at the center of her forge. “They spoke of the powers it possesses.”

“He has some kind of magic, but it strains him greatly to use it,” the Hunter replied. He recalled again the small sleeping face of the child in Corin’s arms, passed out from holding back an inferno that would have incinerated them all.

“I know of such things,” the Armorer replied. She spoke as she worked, pouring the beskar into the prepared mold. “The songs of eons past tell of battles between Mandalore the Great and an order of sorcerers called Jedi that fought with such powers.”

“He is an enemy?” the Hunter asked, unbelieving.

“No. Its kind were, but it is not. It is a foundling. By Creed, it is in your care.” The Armorer lowered the mold into the quenching fluid.

“You want me to train him?”

“No. It is too weak. It would die. You have no choice. You must reunite it with its own kind.” She broke open the mold, turning out the finished object.

“Where?”

“This is for you to determine?”

The Mandalorian Hunter was momentarily speechless, working to understand the magnitude of his new task. IG-11 ducked under the doorway at that moment with the stormtrooper helmet in one manipulator.

“I have decoded the enemy’s movements.”

“Do you know where Gideon is?” the Commando demanded.

“Gideon?” the Armorer’s voice took on a tone of surprise and intense interest that neither of the other Mandalorians had ever heard from her in a long time.

“Moff Gideon is the one who hunts the child. He leads the Imperials on Navarro,” the Hunter clarified.

“I apologize I do not know the location of Moff Gideon,” IG said. “I was able to learn that a platoon was dispatched to guard the outlet of the acid river culvert.”

The Mandalorian Hunter felt the words like a blade driving through his chest. 

“They’re headed into an ambush!”  _ I’m so far behind them! There’s no way I will catch up before it's too late. They have no way of knowing. They won’t be prepared. Worse, they will be trapped in a boat with nowhere to hide or take cover. It will be a slaughter. _

“You must go,” the Armorer said. “A foundling is in your care. By Creed, until it is of age or reunited with its own kind, you are as its father. This is the Way.” She turned from her bench with a worked piece of beskar in hand. “You have earned your Signet.”

The Hunter shook his head backing away from her, shame like hot coals weighing heavy in his gut.

“I--I can’t…” his voice was hollow. “I can’t accept. I won’t make it in time. The Imperials will slaughter them. I-- I have failed the child--the Foundling, failed the Creed.” His helmed head lowered and his arms dropped limp at his sides.

“Not yet you haven’t,” the Commando growled, limping over to the Hunter and spinning him around with a rough grab. He shoved the smaller Mandalorian’s chest hard. The Hunter stumbled into a bench of discarded beskar and armor pieces.

“Giving up so easily?” his larger attacker demanded. “I thought you were better than that. There’s another way out, a vent that runs up into the pumice hills. Climb it and you can cross the hills to reach the ambush site before the barge exits the culvert.”

The Hunter looked up at his one time friend, and found himself nearly shaking.  _ A chance!  _ He thought,  _ the smallest chance but..  _ . 

“Can I make it in time?” the Hunter asked, more to himself than anyone.

“You can,” the Commando said.

“You must. For your Clan,” the Armorer echoed. She stepped forward and this time the Hunter did not pull away as she soldered the piece of beskar to his pauldron with quick practiced efficiency. When she removed her tool the shape of the mudhorn was affixed for all to see.

“You are a clan of two,” she told him.

“Thank you,” the Hunter replied.  _ I hope I will not fail my Clan so soon after it is formed, but until I do, until all hope is lost,...  _ “I will wear this with honor.”

“I have one more gift to aid you on the journey.” She moved behind the forge. “You have trained in the Rising Phoenix, have you not?”

“Yes, when I was a boy.” The Hunter said, barely daring to hope for more.

“Then this will make you complete.” From the tables crowded with salvaged armor and weaponry she raised a beskar jetpack. Paz gave a quiet gasp of surprise. It was not a gift given lightly: a powerful and valuable tool coveted by any Mandalorian skilled enough to use it.

“Thank you.”

“Restock your munitions quickly. Then you must go.” The Armorer turned to the droid, jetpack in hand. “IG, carry this until  _ oya’karad  _ is strong enough to wear it.”

The Hunter didn’t waste time gathering the charges he could carry on his belt and swapping out the ammo pack of his blaster. The wild emotional swings of the last few minutes--crushing despair, faint hope, speechless gratitude--left him feeling jittery and exhausted all at once. 

The Hunter turned to the man he had once counted as his closest friend. The large Commando was leaning against the wall again, his helmet turned towards the blazing fires of the forge. For many years the image of that armor--that man--had been a reminder of shame and grief, of friendships lost and promises broken, but the past no longer seemed to weigh as it did before.

“Paz.”

The Commando stiffened at the sound of his name.

“We were like brothers once,” the Hunter said. “I can’t change what happened or the decisions I made that day, but, for my part, I would like to put the past behind us.  _ Cin vhetin  _ .” The menacing commando helmet turned towards him and for a moment, the hunter was afraid he would be refused. Then the larger mandalorian’s shoulders relaxed and Paz nodded.

“ _ Cin vhetin  _ , Din.”

“Will you come, fight with me again?”

“I would, but, it’s a long climb. As I am, I wouldn’t make it up the shaft,” the words seemed to physically pain him more than the actual injuries. “I’ll remain here, help her, and heal. We will meet again.”

The Hunter held out a hand and Paz grabbed the offered vambrace with a strong grip. 

“Thank you,” the Hunter said sincerely, dropping his friend’s arm. He gave a nod to IG-11 and hurried out of the forge with renewed purpose; he would save his Clan or die trying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of Head-Canon: In my version of the children of the Watch and Din’s Tribe, they don’t use names to refer to people, giving them ranks or designations like Hunter, Commando, Armorer, etc. Din is a hunter, so when other Mandalorian’s are around he thinks of himself as one. They might know each other’s names but wouldn’t use them except in very serious circumstances or with strong familiarity. Din, being a foundling and having no clan, had no one close enough to use his given name with him… till now. More will be explored about this later!
> 
> Mando’a this chapter:  
> Tion aru’e ra burc’ya? - Are you an enemy or a friend?  
> Oya’karad - hunter -- a term of my own invention combining Oya’karir (v. to hunt) and Ad(n. child) to make literally hunting child, hunting person, or child of the hunt.  
> Su’cuyi - hello, literally: “you’re still alive” (very appropriate for the situation) Paz and the Armorer say basically the same thing. It’s just how Mandos greet each other.  
> tracyn goor’ad - fire-cracker -- lit. fir grenadier  
> Jeka’ir bal mircir? - bait and grab? -- a nickname for a tactic that Din and Paz have used before, drawing their enemies in or drawing the enemy attention to whichever of them is the “bait”. The word Jeka’ir I made by turning the noun Jekai into a verb by adding the ‘r’.  
> Cin Vhetin - a clean slate -- used to refer to a person's past whipped away when they become Mandalorian or the forgiving of grievances. Whatever happened to Barthor and between Din and Paz, they agreed to put it behind them. So it definitely won’t come up later. (Author makes innocent face and furtively hides future chapter notes.)
> 
> As always if you can find me on tumblr [@novembermurray](https://novembermurray.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Comments are the sustenance by which I maintain my undead existence.


	7. The Sacrifice - Part III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Din acquires a babysitter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously: Separated from Cara, Greef Karga, Corin and the Child, Din learned that his companions were on their way into an ambush. His old friend Paz told him of an alternate route to the surface, Din's last chance to reach his allies.

The Mandalorian was sweating and his muscles were trembling by the time he was half way up the narrow shaft. It was barely three feet wide, just large enough for him to wedge himself inside. The walls were rough and pockmarked from years of acidic vapor condensing and pooling in the duracrete. The edges of each recess were sharp, he could feel them pressing deep into the flesh of his fingers through his gloves. 

The lip under his hand crumbled suddenly into dust and the Mandalorian pitched forward, his weight dropping onto his aching legs, spread across the vent. They held for a quivering second... 

...then gave out beneath him. For a moment he was in free fall, dropping toward the floor of the tunnel ten stories straight down. He choked on the gasp of air that was snatched out of his lungs.

Then a solid metal arm closed around his thigh, and his short fall was painfully aborted. 

“This is not safe,” IG-11 said, for the thirteenth time. “You are still healing. This amount of strain will—”

“No choice,” the Mandalorian gritted through his teeth, bracing against the walls of the shaft again and hauling himself out of the droid’s grasp. He used his legs to wedge his back against the wall and fumbled for higher and higher handholds. Each one hauled him closer to the circle of light over his head where the shaft exited to the hills over Navarro. IG climbed diligently behind him, silent again.

_ Just a little farther,  _ The Mandalorian told himself.  _ The kid is out there. He’s floating down a river of deadly acid toward an execution. He’s too exhausted to protect everyone again. He must be scared and confused. It’s not his fault what he can do, that everyone wants him for those powers. I can’t let anything happen to him. _

Th Mandalorian dragged himself another foot toward the sky.

_ Corin is out there. He survived torture because of me. He just escaped death at Imperial hands, only to be sent speeding towards it again. He deserves better than to be gunned down because he was decent enough to save an alien kid and an enemy bounty hunter he didn’t even know. Someone like him deserves better, someone so honorable and persevering when he has every reason to be neither.  _

The Mandalorian pushed himself another foot up with his legs, feeling with his hand to find another alcove to latch onto. The sharp edge dug into his palm in the way he knew would leave deep bruises.

_ Cara is out there. Cara who lost her whole planet to the Empire, lost more than any of us—even me. She didn’t want to be here. I knew she hated the Imps more than anything. I used that, and now she’s going to die for the child and me. _

He scrapped, hand over hand, toward that circle of light above.

_ Karga too. Opportunistic bastard, but he didn’t go through with his plan, he didn’t throw me to the wolves. There is some shred of morality left in him.  _

_ Kuiil, if he’s still alive. Lifetimes of work to earn his freedom, and I brought him all this way to die at the hands of his oppressors.  _

_ Even the droid. Maybe it would have spent years in peace on Arvala 7 if I hadn’t come back. _

The light was close now, almost close enough. The Mandalorian dragged himself up another foot and braced against the wall, straightening his arm and shot out the grapple line. It hooked on the edge of the shaft opening and stuck firm. The Mandalorian gave it an experimental tug before using the line to pull himself up the last several feet. 

The flat ground under his knees when he crawled out was an immeasurable relief. It was hot and coarse black gravel, but it was solid. He leaned back onto his heels with a grateful sigh. 

“Done with the easy part,” he said to IG as the droid mechanically wedged himself out of the vent.

The hot Navarro sun was beating down on the black basalt ridge. He could see the peaks of the tallest buildings of the city a mile in the distance. Sighting familiar ridges on the horizon, the Mandalorian panned across the landscape, calculating the trajectory of the river. His helmet sensors locked onto a column of moisture rich air rising from beyond the next clif, evaporating from the river. That gave him his course.

Standing was a physical strain. His legs, barely recovered from the torturous climb, trembled and burned. His first steps were stumbling but quickly picked up speed as he broke into a steady run. The droid kept pace behind him— hovering almost, waiting for him to fall like a mother nuna or… or a nurse maid. 

The Mandalorian kept in good shape, his line of work required it, but it had been a long time since he ran the long endurance drills like he had in his training. His body found the rhythm after several yards and the terrain beyond the next rise began to slope downwards toward the flats. Together, the droid and the bounty hunter ate up the distance with their pace. 

The human was still breathing hard by the time they got within sight of the river culvert. He had nearly topped the next gentle hill when he saw the white figures dotting the black gravel landscape below.

“Get down,” he ordered the droid, and they both dropped to the ground. Carefully they crept to look over the top at the ambush site.

The opening of the river tunnel was directly below and opened away from them toward the lava flats. They could see it’s waters continuing on, gray greenish brown and clogged with volcanic ash and silt. On either bank around the opening stromtroopers were arrayed with weapons drawn and trained on the entrance. The Mandalorian increased his helmet scope to count the arranged troopers: six on either side of the opening: a dozen in total. 

He scanned down the steep hillside that separated them from their enemies. The ground was rocky towards the top with jutting chunks of black boulders that could make good cover. But as the terrain sloped down it smoothed out, leaving nowhere to hide. There was a hundred or more feet of approach that was open hillside: no shelter.

“This is not good,” The Mandalorian growled under his helmet. “They’ll shoot us down before we get close enough to stand a chance.”

“You will dislike what my sensors have detected,” IG warned him.

“What?”

“The barge is approaching.”

The Mandalorian’s stomach dropped.

“At the current speed my sensors detect it will reach the entrance of the tunnel in 15 minutes.”

“Right,” the Mandalorian nodded his head and drew his blaster. “We get as close as we can using the cover we’ve got. Once we have to move into the open or we are spotted we make a run for the tunnel. Take down as many as we can.”

“That plan will most likely result in the termination of all our allies, ourselves, and the capture or death of the child,” IG stated.

“Do you have a better plan? We have to give them a fighting chance at least.”

“They are in a severely disadvantageous position. The chances of their survival if even 25 percent of the enemy forces survive is poor.”

“We don’t have time for this,” the Mandalorian argued. “We need to move.” He vaulted over the ridge and crossed low and quick to the first boulder that offered any concealment. He ducked behind it and sighted up his next hiding place. Darting across to it, he slid and skittered a bit in the gravel and lose rocks, but gratefully nothing more than a few pebbles were dislodged. A rock slide giving away his position was the last thing they needed. Behind him, IG-11 was following his lead, bending itself double to keep concealed. Still, it was only a matter of time before they were spotted, the chances rising the closer and closer they crept.

The Mandalorian got them another forty feet before his boot slipped in the dirt, hitting a larger rock that began to roll down the hill, gaining momentum and dislodging a small rockside of gravel. He skid back behind the cover of a large boulder and IG was a moment behind him. 

Faintly they heard yelling from the stormtroopers. The Mandalorian chanced a glance around the edge of the bolder. The white figures were moving and reorganizing, helmets turned towards their position before red blaster bolts grazed off the rock around him. He ducked away again.

“We have been spotted,” IG said unhelpfully.

“Too soon,” the Mandalorian muttered.

“The barge will exit the tunnel in five minutes.”

“Right. We charge them together.” The hunter readied his blaster.

“That will not be enough. You will die and the child will be captured. This is unacceptable. I will eliminate the enemy, and you will escape.”

“You don’t have enough firepower to do it alone!” The Mandalorian snapped at the droid, desperation creeping into his usually calm voice. “You might make it to them before being shot into scrap metal but you wouldn’t last long enough to kill them all.”

“I still have the security protocols from my manufacturer. If my designs are compromised, I must self-destruct.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I can no longer carry this for you.” The droid carefully put down the beskar jetpack in the gravel. “Nor can I watch over the child.”

_ Haven’t we all lost enough: homes and families and friends.  _ The Mandalorian thought. _ I’m not losing more. This ridiculous droid is good for the kid, saved him… saved me. Maybe the odds are slim but I have to try. _

“Wait,” he grabbed one of the droid’s arms. “You can’t self-destruct. Your base command is to watch and care for the child. That supersedes your manufacturer’s protocols, right? Right?”

“This is correct.” The droid said, his visual sensors trained on the Mandalorian’s visor.

“Then get your basters ready and help me clear the way so we can get you back to the kid.” 

“Victory through combat is impossible. Please tell me the child will be safe in your care. If you do so, I can default to my secondary command.”

The Mandalorian’s throat constricted around the words of his response: “But you’ll be destroyed.” He looked up at IG-11, the dark tubes of its eyes.

“And you will live, and I will have served my purpose.”

“No. We need you,” the Mandalorian shook his head.

“There is nothing to be sad about. I have never been alive.”

“I’m not sad.”  _ Sad over a droid?  _ His mind rebelled at the thought.  _ But  _ **_this_ ** _ droid…  _ He couldn’t deny the tightness in his chest, the lump in his throat, the dread growing in his gut.

“Yes, you are. I’m a nurse droid. I’ve analyzed your voice,” IG explained almost gently and lifted the Mandalorian’s limp hand off his manipulator arm. 

The droid turned it’s back against the bolder and bent it’s legs before pushing with a lifting motion. The bolder rose then tipped slowly, it’s mass shifting until gravity grabbed it. The droid jumped up as the rock finally tipped all the way over and began rolling down the hill. The large rock picked up speed quickly, throwing up others and pushing them into a greater rockside with it. 

IG-11 took off after the bolder, long thin legs carrying him fast with a loping stride, half obscured by the rolling bolder and the ashy dust cloud it was kicking up behind it. The Stormtrooper’s blaster bolts whizzed past the rock and cut through the dust, but they couldn’t hit the fast moving rail thin target until it was almost upon them. The first volly to find its mark barely caused a hitch in the droid’s strides but the second made it stumbled and nearly fall. It was almost close enough when a luck shot caught its knee. It fell, rolling down the last of the hill before tumbling to a stop beside the tunnel exit, amid the troopers.

The Mandalorian, still crouching where the boulder had been, took a sharp breath as all the stormtroopers stopped firing, weapons trained on the fallen droid, waiting for it to move from the heap on the ground. 

IG-11 exploded in a fireball that engulfed both sides of the river, blasting back the white stormtroopers and rumbling the ground. The Mandalorian felt the force of it up through his feet. As the echoes faded the boulder he and the droid had used for cover found a resting place at the bottom of the hill amid a shower of smaller rocks and dirt. 

Then there was only silence.

The Mandalorian let out the breath he had been holding, and his helmet tipped down. 

_ It was the best way, the way that ensured the child’s safety—mine, Corin’s, Cara’s… So why does it feel so much like a failure?  _ He wondered.

A cry from below, a whoop of triumph made him look up. Making its way slowly on the lazy current the barge was emerging out of the tunnel. The small figure of Karga pumped the air with his fists. Cara stood with her weapon in hand, training it over the ground, probably still vigilant for any survivors. Corin was huddled in the boat with his arms and body wrapped around the satchel where the Mandalorian guessed the child was bundled against his chest. From what the bounty hunter had seen, Corin did nothing by half measures; he would have shielded the child from danger till his last breath. 

A sound, slowly rising, getting closer and higher in pitch made the hairs on the Mandalorian’s arms and neck tingle: the droning sound of the Tie Fighter. 

_ Moff Gideon! _ He thought. His heart picked up into double time as he spun around, searching the skies. From behind him, over his head the Tie Fighter screamed by, guns unloading on the hillside below and the river.

“NO!” The Mandalorian raised his blaster and shot after it but he knew he would miss at that range and the Tie Fighter’s speed. Even if he hit, the shields would deflect his bolts easily. He looked down from the Tie at the precarious barge, stuck in the middle of the deadly river. From what he could tell it was unharmed after the first pass of the Tie Fighter, but the Moff would return.

_ He won’t keep missing, _ the Mandalorian thought, his eyes dropping to the gravel and the jetpack.  _ I have to take the fight to him. _ He grabbed up the heavy piece of equipment and pulled his cloak out of the way. It snapped into place on his back-plate. It had been years since he trained with one, and then it had been the smaller training models, lighter and shorter range. 

_ Manda take my soul, but let me do this first, _ he thought, running several more yards down the slope. He slipped and skid in the gravel and dirt while struggling to keep the Tie Fighter that was bearing down on them for a second pass in his view. He stopped above the tunnel opening and waited to engage the jetpack. 

He knew with his injuries and fatigue he wasn’t strong enough to maneuver in mid-air. Even then, he wasn’t fast enough to keep up with a Tie at fighting speeds. He shook out his arm. 

_ This is gonna hurt, _ he figured. 

The Tie Fighter opened fire, guns tearing up the black field and making small explosions of acidic water where it hit the river. The Mandalorian didn’t have time to see if any of them struck the barge. He couldn’t take his eyes off the fighter, waiting for the exact moment he needed.

He hit the ignition his vambrace and the jetpack roared to life on his back, launching him into the sky a split second in front of the Tie Fighter as it swept up the hillside. He felt the air currents between the wings of the craft and at the same moment shot out his arm, the grapple line deploying and catching around the wing spar. It latched tight.

Then the line pulled taunt and the Mandalorian was yanked out of the air. The sudden pull of a carrening fighter wrenched his shoulder horribly. Despite being prepared for it and wearing the underarmor to redistribute the tension it felt like his arm was being pulled off. The air buffeted him like physical blows as he was flung back and forth through the sky. His head spun trying to keep his sense of up and down, twisting on the line. He hit the grapple retraction, but the motor in his vambrace only stuttered and screamed, unable to pull against the force of the air currents.

For a brief moment the line straightened out as the Tie climbed in altitude. The Mandalorian took his chance, hitting the jet pack ignition again. It boosted him forward at the same time his grapple line was retracting. He bodily slammed into the spherical body of the Tie Fighter, and he gripped the lip of the pilot compartment hatch. Through the transparisteel he could see the Moff inside. Straining to keep his hold on the ship as it careened through the sky he pulled his blaster and shot downward, bolts skittering off the hardened exterior. 

Gideon looked up at him then jerked the controls quickly to the right. The Mandalorian couldn’t grab hold fast enough as the Tie Fighter tipped into a barrel roll. He was thrown against the wing spar and nearly into the wing itself. His pauldron and elbow hit the hard steel of the ship and be grabbed for it, slipping before he found purchase, leaving him trailing from the Tie fighter with only one hand.

He fumbled at his belt for the explosive charges the Armorer had given him. The first was ripped out his hand by the wind, exploding behind the tie fighter as it tumbled toward the ground. He grabbed the second and put all the last of his strength into one final heave. Fighting against the rushing air with one arm, it was just enough to get his free hand up, over the spar. The charge smacked firmly against the metal and stuck. 

The Mandalorian let go.

The Tie Fighter sped away as the weightlessness of freefall embraced him. He saw the craft jerk once to the left, like Gideon was trying to dislodge the charge. Then it exploded, tumbling into a death spiral out of the sky.

In his HUD the altitude sensors started beeping faster and faster in his ear as the ground sped up toward him. Like he had drilled endless times as a boy, he tipped his body forward, watching the horizon line appearing and flattening before his eyes in the HUD, and hit the ignition. The force of his slowed descent weighed on his battered body. He pulled near those G forces in the  _ Razor Crest _ from time to time, but here there was no seat holding him steady, only the strength of his own muscles and his armor. 

By luck or, more likely, damn good training, he didn’t jettison himself into the ground. He still touched down a little hard and, when the jetpack shut off, its unfamiliar weight made him stumble. 

He stood still on the lava flats, getting his bearing back, for a long moment. His heart raced in his ears and he struggled to catch his breath. On the horizon a plume of smoke rose where the Tie fighter went down. He was too exhausted to feel anything but relief at the sight. 

_ Moff Gideon is dead. He’s dead. The imps will scatter without a leader. He’s dead. We’re safe. _

“MANDO!” Karga’s shout drew him around. The barge was run aground at the first bend of the river a hundred feet away. On still shaking legs, the Mandalorian headed towards them. Cara helped lift first Karga, then Corin out of the barge to the safe, dry land. 

As they got close, the Mandalorian was greeted with the most beautiful sight: better than the crashed tie fighter or even sight of his beloved ship: the little smiling child, wrinkled head and large dark eyes. The child reached out little three fingered hands, cooing happily, and his large brown eyes locked on the Mandalorian. Corin hurried toward the bounty hunter. His mouth was half open in disbelief and shock. In the bright light of day the half healed bruises across his face and exposed neck were stark against his pale skin. Both of them were covered in dust, soot, and blood, but they were alive against all the odds. The last knot of worry and dread unwound in the Mandalorian’s chest and he could breathe easy again. 

“It’s you, it’s really…” Corin stuttered as he got closer. “You made it.”

“I knew the Imps couldn’t keep you down,” Cara greeted him, coming up beside Corin with a wide smirk across her face. 

“That was very impressive, Mando,” Karga said, hands on his hips and grinning widely. For once the expression was almost genuine. “Very impressive. It looks like your Guild rates have just gone up.”  _ And of course it ties back to money, _ the Mandalorian thought with a touch of fondness.

“How?” Corin gasped, still staring like he couldn’t quite trust his eyes. 

“IG-11. He saved me, saved us all in the end.”

“That explosion, that was…” Corin asked, trailing off. His gaze was broken from staring at the Mandalorian when he had to catch the squirming child trying to escape from his arms. Corin dropped to his knees, letting the little guy onto the ground where he clearly wanted to be. The child tottered immediately towards the Mandalorian. 

“Any more stormtroopers?” the bounty hunter asked Cara.

“I think we just about cleaned up the town. I’m thinking of staying around just to be sure.” She patted the repeating blaster he’d given her.

“You’re staying here?” He asked in surprise. She sure had been convincing when she said she was happy on Sorgun, but maybe she was convincing herself too. 

“Well, why not?” Karga asked, smiling at Cara. “Nevarro is a very fine planet. And now that the scum and villainy have been washed away, it’s very respectable again.”  _ Like it was ever that, _ the Mandalorian thought.

“As a bounty hunter hive?” he clarified.

“Some of my favorite people are bounty hunters,” Karga defended. “And perhaps, this specimen of soldier might consider joining our ranks.” 

Cara flashed the Mandalorian a look that told him she was well aware Karga was buttering her up. The Mandalorian had a feeling she would work the Guild for everything it was worth.

“Yeah…” she drawled. “I’ve got some clerical concerns regarding my chain code.”

“And if you would agree to become my enforcer, clerical concerns would be the least of your worries.”  _ Yeah, she’ll be fine,  _ the Mandalorian thought. 

Little claws dup into the Mandalorian’s leg just above his boot. The child was latched onto him, looking up with large brown eyes. “But you, my friend,” Karga pulled the Mandalorian’s attention back, “you will be welcome back into the Guild with open arms. So, go enjoy yourself. And, when you’re ready, return, you will have the pick of all quarries.”

The Mandalorian quietly bent and picked up the child, settling the little alien in the crook of his elbow.

“I’m afraid I have more pressing matters at hand.” He said, helmet still turned down towards his foundling. That only left… Corin. The bounty hunter looked at the ex-stormtrooper. “Where will  _ you _ go?” he asked. Corin appeared genuinely surprised to be asked and then rubbed the back of his head nervously.

“I don’t know,” he said, his gaze dropping to his boots. They didn’t need to say aloud that Navarro wouldn’t be safe for him with a bounty on his head, other Imperials remnants throughout the outer rim would know him as a defector, and the New Republic still had warrants for his arrest. “Maybe back to Berilia, or somewhere quiet…” From what the Mandalorian had seen Corin was good at finding trouble, or trouble was good at finding him, even somewhere quiet. But he was honest, hard-working, and, most rare of all, empathetic. 

“It’s been a long time since I had someone around to watch my back,” the Mandalorian said before he’d fully thought it through. Corin glanced up at him quickly, shining blue eyes wide. The Mandalorian shrugged, bouncing the child in his arms and getting a happy ‘coo’ in response. “And the kid seems to like you.”

“You… you’d let me come with you?” Corin asked.

“Space would be tight, but the Crest is large enough for two… plus the kid. It would be complicated, sometimes dangerous, and I probably won’t be able to pay you very well.” The words were barely out of his mouth and the Mandalorian thought it sounded like the worst job pitch he had ever heard.

“I’m bad luck,” Corin shook his head, scuffing his boot in the black gravel.

“Not for me. You show up when my luck is looking up.”

Corin met the steady gaze of the black visor again, and asked tentatively: “You  _ want  _ me to come with you?”

_ That’s so hard for him to believe?  _ The Mandalorian wondered. “Will you?” He asked.

“Yes,” Corin blurted out like he couldn’t hold it in any longer. A wide smile pulled across his face. “Yes,” he repeated, ducking his head, “anywhere.” Something in the Mandalorian’s chest unclenched with the agreement, and he couldn’t help smiling back behind his helmet.

“It’s nice to think the kid won’t be alone with you and that rattley old ship.” Cara said with a knowing smile. The Mandalorian cocked his head to the side trying to decipher what she knew that he didn’t. She just shook her head at him and stepped forward to give the kid’s ear a last parting tweek. “Take care of this little one,” she told him seriously.

“Or maybe… it’ll take care of you,” Karga suggested, smiling at the child.

The Mandalorian gave them a nod and turned to Corin. “Ready?”

Corin flashed him a grin and nodded.

They fell in step together, setting off across the lava flats.

* * *

The Mandalorian was ready to collapse into his bunk by the time they reached the  _ Razor Crest _ , but as they drew close, he knew there was a last duty that had to be taken care of. Not far from the ship was the large bulbous body of the dead blurg and the smaller form of Kuiil. The Ugnaught was lying on his side where he fell with two blaster scorch marks in his back.

The Mandalorian wordlessly handed the child to Corin. The kid had fallen quiet as they approached. He cooed softly and turned his face into the dark fabric of Corin’s shirt when the Mandalorian turned the body over. 

“A friend?” Corin asked. The Mandalorian nodded. 

“His body shouldn’t be left out here for the mynocks.” Later he would blame the way his voice was breaking on fatigue. 

“Tell me what I can do to help,” Corin said, coming up beside the body.

“You don’t need to,” the Mandalorian shook his head. “You must be exhausted after today.”

“No worse than you or the kid.” 

The Mandalorian sighed. That was one of the reasons he respected Corin; diligence. 

Together they gathered the rocks and gravel they needed. They set the child on a large boulder but as soon as their backs were turned the kid had gotten down and crossed to the body. He sat beside it, quiet and solemn, like he understood what was happening. 

“There must be so much grief in his past,” Corin speculated as they walked back, arms loaded with basalt. 

“Why do you say that?”

“He’s the only one of his kind I’ve ever seen. He lost the rest of his people, whoever they were, somehow.”

“Do you think he remembers them?” the Mandalorian wondered.  _ Would he have remembered me if I had died today? _

“I hope so. He was distressed when he awoke without you there, in the sewers. I’m glad you came back for him; this time and the others too.” Corin glanced at him sidelong with a lovely gentle smile that made the Mandalorian’s chest clench. It wasn’t an uncomfortable feeling, but an unfamiliar one. He realized he’d like Corin to smile like that at him again.

In silence they raised the mound over the small body and built the cairn that would be Kuiil’s grave. The Mandalorian settled the hat and goggles on a makeshift headstone and stepped back. Corin was already holding the child in his arms, rocking the little alien. 

“I didn’t know him, but I feel like I should say something,” Corin confessed softly. 

“How do people honor the dead where you come from?”

Corin was already shaking his head and frowning. “They bury the dead with gold and valuables, a lavish party and spectacle. Death is just the last way to show off how wealthy you were in life.”

“Kuiil didn’t care about money. Freedom and peace, that’s what was valuable to him,” the Mandalorian said.  _ And he lost both helping me. _

“What about Mandalorians?” Corin asked.

The bounty hunter was too caught up in his own thoughts and didn’t fully process the words for a long moment. It was little consolation, but the Mandalorian tradition was something he could do. He lowered his head respectfully and said the prayer of remembrance: 

“ _ Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum _ .”  _ My remembrance is all I can offer, _ the Mandalorian lamented silently.

“ _ Darasuum _ , what does that mean?” Corin asked. The unexpected question jolted his companion out of thought.

“Eternity,” the bounty hunter answered. “The prayer means: I am still alive while you are dead, but I remember you so you are eternal.”

“You said something like that, when we left…” Corin trailed off and the Mandalorian realized immediately what he was referring to.

“You told me you wouldn’t forget,” The Madalorian explained. “ _ Gar partayli, ven’par ni cuyi darasuum.  _ You remember me, thus I will be eternal.”

“I—I didn’t know it meant... when I said it... even if I didn’t know, I-I….” Corin swallowed before he could finish in a whisper, “I meant it.” His cheeks turned a warm pink under the purple and blue cast of bruises. 

“Thank you,” the Mandalorain said sincerely and put a hand on Corin’s shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze.

In Corin’s arms the child gave a large, jaw splitting yawn and cooed tiredly. The Mandalorian smiled fondly behind his helmet. He reached out for the little creature and wrapped him in the fabric of his cloak when Corin handed the child over. The sun was setting and the night time chill was settling in.

“You’re right, kid,” the Mandalorian said. “Time to go.” The child wriggled in his arms, getting comfortable. His little claws grasped at something in his onesie that he started mouthing sleepily. The Mandalorian pulled back the collar to see the silver beskar mythosaur skull on the leather cord around the kid’s neck. 

“Huh,” he laughed a little to himself. Corin must have put it on the kid after they left him in the Common house. A warmth grew in his chest at the gesture. “Never thought I’d see that again.” He patted the collar back in place. “You hang onto that.”

He looked back at Kuiil’s grave one last time before turning back towards the  _ Crest _ , Corin at his side and the child in his arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There’s an Epilogue left and then on to the next part which will be titled **Care**. I’ll post both next week because they flow basically one into the other. Thanks for reading this far!


	8. Epilogue - The Mistake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Din faces what he signed up for.

The Mandalorian woke up comfortably warm, with the uncommon feeling of his face pressed into the cloth of his pillow. Sleeping helmetless was a luxury he usually only indulged in when rattling through hyperspace alone in his own ship, secure in knowing no one had the possibility of seeing him. His body felt heavy and sore in the way that reminded him he had fought hard and long the day before. There were aches where his armor had been blasted into his flesh, his shoulder was particularly stiff as he shifted, every inch of his body itched with salty sweat residue, and his hair was sticky with dried bacta and blood. 

The events of the previous day resurfaced into his memory as he blinked awake to the familiar sight of his bunk in the  _ Razor Crest _ . Thinking back, he realized without the bacta spray IG had given him, fatal concussion aside, he would have felt a lot worse this morning. High concentration bacta was potent, but used too often it tended to develop serious side effects of the lethal variety. He made a note to check for tumors growing on his scalp and neck over the next several months even though the chances were low. 

With the aches from the previous day, the losses came back to him as well: Kuiil was dead and IG was destroyed. The Covert and so many of his brethren were gone. The losses were more painful than the physical injuries. They were heavy; more weights locked with beskar shackles around his heels to be dragged along.

_ Gideon is gone too, _ he thought with a sense of relief.  _ The kid is safe. _

_ The kid! _

The Mandalorian shoved the helmet back on and hurried to open the bunk hatch, scrambling out to a truly unpredictable sight.

A picturesque shirtless man with ruffled dark hair and a sharp jawline was doing pushups in the cargo bay. His back glistened with a sheen of sweat as he raised himself up, skin rippling with the movement of the tight muscles underneath. Perched in the center of the man’s back was the little green child. At the top of his pushup, the man shifted his weight onto one strong arm and picked a nut out of a bowl on the floor before him, passing it back over his shoulder to the child’s greedly claws. He put both hands back on the deck of the hold before starting to lower slowly again with a soft grunt of effort. The only thing maring the otherwise lovely picture was the molting of half healed bruises that covered the man’s torso and ringed his wrists and forearms in dark purple bands.

“Morning,” the shirtless man said, voice strained with the effort of his exercise making it sound attractively rough. 

The Mandalorian continued to stare. The limited functions of his blood deprived half awake brain made the explaination for the strange scene hard to dredge up. He understood clearly enough that Corin was doing pushups in his ship. He had offered Corin a place on the _ Razor Crest _ . Corin had been a soldier, part of the Imperial army, so he was probably used to doing a series of exercises at the start of each day. That all made sense. At the same time he was digesting the image of a wonderfully attractive man in almost no clothing working himself to a sweat before the Mandalorian’s eyes with soft rhythmic groans of exertion. The Mandalorian found his pants were unusually tight that morning, heat pooling low in his torso, and he swallowed uncomfortably. 

“Morning,” he replied belatedly, hoping the strain in his voice only sounded like sleep. 

“I—Should I not be doing this here?” Corin asked, dropping to his knees and looking worried. He tried to coax the child down, but the kid just smacked the bare shoulder he was sitting on with a pout. Corin chuckled and offered up a nut to lure the child off. “Sorry if I made the whole place stink like a gym.”

“No. I mean, it’s fine,” the Mandalorian shook his head, cursing the way his voice came out clipped and tight. Corin stood up and whipped his face with his discarded shirt. His shifting abdomen muscles drew attention to the bare hip bones jutting up from his waistline, the shadows pointing in a v shape down to... the Mandalorian looked away sharply. “Not like it smelled very pleasant in here after the Blurg anyway.” That at least was the truth. “You can um…. Continue. I’m just gonna… wash up.” 

He made a hasty retreat into the fresher to take a colder than normal shower. Standing under the water waiting for his body to calm down and letting the dried bacta, blood, sweat, and ash roll off his skin, he wondered if he hadn’t made a terrible mistake inviting Corin aboard. Waking up to that view was going to take some getting used to. Yes, a terrible, half naked, well-toned, sweaty, objectively gorgeous, too-kind-for-his-own-good mistake. Din leaned forward until his forehead hit the fresher wall with a thud. He sighed heavily and turned the nob further towards cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story continues in the next part! 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who read this far and all the wonderful, wonderful people who left comments: TearfulSolace, CeruleanRaindrops, RYUJIN1027, thegirlwhodreamswhileawake, ThePiningTrees, Ghoststhread, Averin, gothicsprinkles, and Passionate_Storyteller. You guys are awesome!


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